PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN FOREST MANAGEMENT:

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN FOREST MANAGEMENT: RESULTS FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY OF ADVISORY COMMITTEES J.R. Parkins, S. Nadeau, L. Hunt, J. Sinclair, M. Reed and S. Wallace INFORMATION REPORT NOR-X-409 Northern Forestry Centre

The Canadian Forest Service’s Northern Forestry Centre is responsible for fulfilling the federal role in forestry research and technology transfer in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. The main objective is research in support of improved forest management for the economic, social, and environmental benefit of all Canadians. The Northern Forestry Centre is one of five centers of the Canadian Forest Service, which has its headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario.

Le Service canadien des forêts, Centre de foresterie du Nord, représente le gouvernement fédéral en Alberta, en Saskatchewan, au Manitoba, au Nunavut et dans les Territoires du Nord–Ouest en ce qui a trait aux recherches forestières et au transfert de technologie. Cet organisme s’intéresse surtout à la recherche en vue d’améliorer l’aménagement forestier afin que tous les Canadiens puissent en profiter aux points de vue économique, social et environnemental. Le Centre de foresterie du Nord constitue l’un des cinq établissements du Service canadien des forêts, dont l’administration centrale est à Ottawa (Ontario).

Cover photographs provided by John Parkins, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN FOREST MANAGEMENT: RESULTS FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY OF ADVISORY COMMITTEES

J.R. Parkins, S. Nadeau,1 L. Hunt,2 J. Sinclair,3 M. Reed,4 and S. Wallace1

INFORMATION REPORT NOR-X-409

Canadian Forest Service Northern Forestry Centre 2006

1Canadian

Forest Service, Atlantic Forestry Centre, Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 5P7. Ministry of Natural Resources, Centre for Northern Ecosystem Research, Thunder Bay, Ontario P7B 5E1. 3University of Manitoba, Natural Resources Institute, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2. 4University of Saskatchewan, Department of Geography, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5. 2Ontario

© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2006 Catalogue No. Fo133-1/409E-PDF ISBN 0-662-44432-9 ISSN 0831-8247 A microfiche edition of this publication may be purchased from: Micromedia Proquest 20 Victoria Street Toronto, Ontario M5C 2N8 TTY: 613-996-4397 (Teletype for the hearing-impaired) ATS: 613-996-4397 (appareil de télécommunication pour sourds) Cette publication est aussi disponible en français sous le titre: Participation publique à la gestion forestière : résultats d’un sondage national auprès de comités consultatifs. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Public participation in forest management [electronic resource] : results from a national survey of advisory committees / J.R. Parkins ... [et al.]. (Information report ; NOR-X-409) Electronic monograph in PDF format. Mode of access: World Wide Web. Includes abstract in French. Issued also in French under title: Participation publique à la gestion forestière, résultats d’un sondage national auprès de comités consultatifs. Includes bibliographical references: p. ISBN 0-662-44432-9 Cat. no.: Fo133-1/409E-PDF 1. 2. 3. I. II. III. IV.

Citizens’ advisory committees in forest management--Canada. Forest management--Canada--Citizen participation. Forest policy--Canada--Citizen participation. Parkins, J. ( John), 1967Northern Forestry Centre (Canada) Title. Series: Information report (Northern Forestry Centre (Canada) : Online) NOR-X-409.

SD377.C47P82 2006

333.750971

C2006-980276-9

This report has been printed on Canadian recycled paper.

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Parkins, J.R.; Nadeau, S.; Hunt, L.; Sinclair, J.; Reed, M.; Wallace, S. 2006. Public participation in forest management: results from a national survey of advisory committees. Nat. Resour. Can., Can. For. Serv., North, For. Cent., Edmonton, AB. Inf. Rep. NOR-X-409.

ABSTRACT This report provides a national overview of public advisory committees in the forest sector. Descriptive statistics were tabulated for two surveys: one directed to the chairs of advisory committees (n = 101), and the other to the advisory committee members (n = 1079). The study provides insight into public representation, the values of committee members, the role and functioning of advisory committees, and general levels of satisfaction with committee processes. Although there are many regional variations, the results reported here suggest that committee members are generally satisfied with their experiences with these advisory committees. Ongoing challenges for many committees, identified by respondents, include the provision of timely and diverse sources of information, adequate public representation (especially Aboriginal involvement), and group processes associated with consensus building and decision making. The report concludes with suggestions aimed at improving the overall effectiveness of advisory committees in the forest sector.

RÉSUMÉ Le présent rapport donne un aperçu national des comités consultatifs publics œuvrant dans le secteur des forêts. Il présente une compilation de statistiques descriptives établies à partir des résultats de deux sondages, l’un auprès des présidents des comités consultatifs (n = 101) et l’autre auprès des membres des comités (n = 1 079). L’étude donne un aperçu de la représentation du public, des valeurs des membres des comités, du rôle et du fonctionnement des comités consultatifs et du degré général de satisfaction à l’égard des processus des comités. Malgré l’existence de nombreuses variations régionales, les résultats dont fait état le présent rapport laissent supposer que les membres des comités sont généralement satisfaits de leur expérience au sein de ces comités consultatifs. Au nombre des défis que doivent relever de nombreux comités et qu’ont cerné les répondants figurent l’obtention de renseignements à jour et diversifiés, une représentation adéquate du public (notamment la participation des Autochtones) et les processus de groupe associés à l’établissement d’un consensus et à la prise de décisions. Le rapport se termine par des suggestions visant à améliorer l’efficacité générale des comités consultatifs dans le secteur forestier.

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CONTENTS Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design of Questionnaires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Selection of Advisory Committees to be Surveyed . Administration of the Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . Questionnaire for Advisory Committee Chairs . Questionnaire for Committee Members. . . . . Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Response Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results of Survey of Committee Chairs . . . . . . Results of Survey of Committee Members . . . . . Demographic Information . . . . . . . . . . . . Committee Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . Forest Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Committee Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methods of Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Opinions on Sponsorship and Group Process . . Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Regional Similarities and Differences . . . . . . . Measuring Fairness and Effectiveness . . . . . . . Group Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Group Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Challenges of Consensus Building . . . . . . . . . Alternative Views on Committee Effectiveness . . Conclusions and Suggestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literature Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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. 1 . 2 . 2 . 3 . 5 . 5 . 5 . 6 . 6 . 6 . 6 .10 .10 .11 .14 .16 .18 .20 .24 .24 .24 .25 .25 .26 .26 .27 .29 .29

APPENDIXES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

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Questionnaire for advisory committee chairs . . . . . . . . . . . . Questionnaire for committee members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Demographic characteristics of respondents to survey of members of forest advisory committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reasons for participating on forest advisory committees . . . . . . Representation of views by members of forest advisory committees Degree of agreement with statements related to existence values. . Degree of agreement with statements related to spiritual values . . Degree of agreement with statements related to inherent worth values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Degree of agreement with statements related to economic or utilitarian values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . 33 . . 35 . . . . .

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43 44 45 46 47

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10. Frequency of pressure to agree with decisions with which respondents were not completely comfortable . . . . . . . . . . . 11. Frequency of committee accessing various sources of information . 12. Time spent on various activities during committee meetings . . . 13. Agreement with statements regarding participation on committee. 14. Feelings about committee and sponsor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15. Agreement with statements related to the forest management planning process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16. Agreement with statements regarding the quality of group deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17. Satisfaction with various aspects of the committee and process . .

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51 52 54 55 56

. . 57 . . 61 . . 63

FIGURES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

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Distribution of respondents by region. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of respondents who self-identified as female and/or Aboriginal by region. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of respondents who indicated a requirement to attend committee meetings as a part of their job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of respondents who agreed that their committee region represents values of all interested and affected groups. . . . . . . . . Responses to statement that forests are sacred places, by sex.. . . . . Responses to statement that the primary function of forests should be for products and services that are useful to humans, by sex. . . . . Percentage of respondents who agreed that the committee purpose is clear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Most influential agency or individual in setting the meeting agenda . Perceived most accurate sources of information about forests and forest management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perceived least accurate sources of information about forests and forest management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of time spent on various activities during committee meetings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of respondents who felt positive before and after joining the committee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of respondents who agreed that attendance by regular members is sporadic, which means a lot of time is spent covering old ground. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of respondents who were satisfied with the overall process in which they were involved. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. 10 . 11 . 13 . 13 . 15 . 16 . 17 . 17 . 19 . 19 . 19 . 22 . 23 . 23

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TABLES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

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Representation of forest advisory committees and committee members, by province . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delivery of surveys to members of Canadian forest advisory committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of chairs of forest advisory committees surveyed, size of committee mailing lists, and meeting average attendance, by region . . Frequency of meetings and duration of existence for forest advisory committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sponsoring agencies for forest advisory committees . . . . . . . . . . Types of facilitation for committee meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . Type of decision-making processes used by forest advisory committees Types of compensation for members of forest advisory committees . . Age of respondents (members of forest advisory committees) . . . . . Duration of members’ involvement with forest advisory committees . . Representation of specific views by members of forest advisory committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Groups not represented on forest advisory committees . . . . . . . . . Agreement with statements related to existence values . . . . . . . . . Agreement with statements related to inherent worth values. . . . . . Frequency of pressure to agree with decisions with which respondents were not completely comfortable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frequency of accessing various sources of information . . . . . . . . . Agreement with selected statements regarding participation on committee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Agreement with selected statements related to the forest management planning process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.4 .5 .8 .8 .8 .9 .9 .9 11 12 12 14 15 15 17 18 20 22

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INTRODUCTION In recent years, public participation has become a key component of forest planning and policy development. This concept is reflected in numerous policy initiatives at the provincial and national levels, as well as a growing number of public processes that facilitate interaction between forestry professionals and the public. A general acknowledgment of the need to involve a wider range of public interests and values in the management of crown lands has also led to the emergence of various public processes and legal requirements. Although governments and forest companies use a variety of methods to interact with the public, such as surveys and open houses, advisory committees (also known as citizen committees or stakeholder committees) have become a central aspect of many forest planning processes across the country. Forest sector advisory committees represent a form of community-based public engagement, where local forest users (along with people involved in the forest sector for their livelihood, representatives of other local agencies such as educational establishments and the business community, and elected leaders) participate in discussions about forest management and provide input into local decision-making. Although their outcomes are rarely binding, these committees are intended to provide public oversight and guidance to the decision-makers who are responsible for the management of public resources. In some jurisdictions, requirements for such advisory committees are now embedded within provincial regulations and forest management licensing procedures. In Ontario, although local citizen committees now represent a broader crosssection of public interests, they were first started by fishing and hunting clubs seeking to have input into road access and wildlife management issues. In British Columbia, land and resource management plans represent a type of government-sponsored advisory committee with a mandate for land use planning at the regional level. In other provinces, such as Alberta, Manitoba, and New Brunswick, advisory committees have originated primarily

from forest companies and are now a legislated component of the forest planning process. In addition to provincial legislation, forest certification initiatives such as the Canadian Standards Association’s Sustainable Forest Management system (CSA 2002) and the Forest Stewardship Council’s National Boreal Standard (FSC 2005) have strongly emphasized the use of advisory committees and have spelled out requirements for ongoing public consultation on forest planning and monitoring as a condition for certification. These market-based certification initiatives, along with various provincial legislative requirements, indicate a shift toward placebased public participation in the management of Canada’s public forests. Underlying this wave of interest is the belief that public participation will help to incorporate local knowledge and local values into forest planning processes. Concern about the integration of public knowledge and interests into forest management is also embedded in the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers’ criteria and indicators framework for sustainable forest management (CCFM 2003). One of the elements in this framework deals with “fair and effective decision-making,” which is measured in part by “the proportion of participants who are satisfied with public involvement processes in forest management in Canada” (CCFM 2003, page 19). In addition to this national reporting framework, provincial agencies, such as the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (2002), have initiated reporting frameworks that require information on public participation in forest management. The project described here was initiated, in part, to capture a national picture of public advisory committees in the forest sector and to provide baseline information for national and regional reporting purposes. This shift toward placebased public participation is a relatively recent phenomenon, and although some researchers have

developed case studies of these nascent groups, no national analysis has yet been undertaken. Furthermore, because several provincial and national reporting frameworks require information on public participation processes, the development of a national-level data set on public participation was warranted. In an effort to extend this analysis beyond a simple count of public engagements or a list of available public processes, the study was designed to generate a basic profile of advisory committee functions and activity. It was intended to allow deeper analysis by providing some baseline information about issues such as public representation and inclusiveness, the demographic characteristics of committee members, the mandate of each committee, the types of information that are accessed by each committee, the effectiveness of group processes, and some recommendations by committee members for improvements to group processes. This report provides a broad overview of

survey results; a more detailed analysis of the data, according to differences between male and female respondents and differences between private sector and public sector sponsorship of committees, will be undertaken in subsequent reports. For this national study, a team of researchers embarked on a project in 2004 to identify and survey all known public advisory committees involved in forest planning and management. The exception to this census of committees was in Quebec, where, because of the high number of committees, a subset of known committees was surveyed. The project team represented a geographic distribution of researchers as well as a spectrum of academic disciplines, specifically geography, sociology, and forest science. The researchers (the first 5 authors of this report) contributed to all aspects of the study design and to the presentation of results in this report.

METHODS Design of Questionnaires The project involved the design and administration of two questionnaires: one for the members of each advisory committee and one for the chair of each advisory committee (see Appendix 1 and 2). Design of the questionnaires involved extensive interaction among all five members of the research team. Each team member has broad experience in the social dimensions of forest management, some personal experience with the advisory committee processes in his or her region of the country, and a particular scholarly orientation to public participation processes. One of the key challenges in developing these questionnaires was making them generic enough to be applicable in all parts of the country and in many different types of advisory committee settings, but also specific enough to address some of the key issues raised in the literature. Several published reports were consulted to identify the key factors contributing to successful public participation

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and to identify criteria for evaluating effective public participation processes (Homenuck et al. 1977; Tuler and Webler 1999; Caron 2000; Chess 2000; Rowe and Frewer 2000; Carr and Halvorsen 2001; Halvorsen 2001; Coglianese 2003). Many of the ideas that these authors considered crucial to effective public participation were incorporated into the study design for the current project. The study also attempted to build on previous research with advisory committee members in two provinces (Parkins et al. 2001; Hunt and McFarlane 2002; McGurk et al. 2006). The extensive literature on public participation in forest management reflects a growing recognition of the significant role that public values and public knowledge can play in making workable forest management decisions (Tanza and Howard 1991; Higgelke and Duinker 1993; Joint FAO/ECE/ILO Committee 2000). The Joint FAO/ECE/ILO Committee on Forestry Technology, Management and Training (2000,

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page 7) has defined public participation in forestry as “various forms of direct public involvement where people, individually or through organized groups, can exchange information, express opinions, and articulate interests, and have the potential to influence decisions or the outcome of specific forestry issues.” This definition identifies several specific features of public participation that were pertinent to this study, including attention to direct and indirect interaction between individuals, the exchange of information, and the opportunity to influence outcomes and affect change in forest management practices. Likewise, this national survey tapped into these aspects of public participation in some detail. One area of considerable focus in public participation processes is the issue of group representation (Gundry and Heberlein 1984; McComas 2001), specifically the questions of who is involved and whether these committee members adequately represent public values. The first section of the member questionnaire used in this study addressed this question in some detail to gain insights into why members are involved, who they represent, and whether the committee is thought to be representative of all interested and affected groups. This section also included questions about forest values, the answers to which will afford future opportunity for statistical comparisons between the values of committee members and the values of the general public. Previous comparative research along these lines is already available for Alberta (McFarlane and Boxall 2000) and Ontario (Hunt and McFarlane 2002). A second area of considerable focus, the processes and procedures used within the committee itself, encompasses aspects of fairness and effectiveness that are thought to be crucial to group processes (Lawrence et al. 1997; Shindler and Neburka 1997; Lauber and Knuth 1999), along with various aspects of group deliberation, such as sources of information, time constraints, complexity, and outside pressures (Parkins and Mitchell 2005), and various learning outcomes (Sinclair and Diduck 2001). The chair and the member questionnaires addressed process and

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procedural issues in some detail. Finally, survey respondents provided insights into ways of improving the effectiveness of group activities and several measures of satisfaction with group activities.

Selection of Advisory Committees to be Surveyed Although advisory committees are a popular form of public participation in the forest sector, the exact number of committees across Canada is unknown. To identify committees in various jurisdictions, contacts were made with government and industry officials, as well as with other researchers working in the field of public participation. The information gathered from these key informants revealed a diverse situation across the country, with some provinces having fewer than 10 committees and one province having more than 100. The study covered 9 of the 10 provinces and did not include any of the territories. In all provinces except Quebec, the member questionnaire was administered to all members of identified committees. In Quebec, the large number of advisory committees made it impractical to survey every committee; therefore, a sample of advisory committees was selected for inclusion, with two considerations in mind: the needs of the CCFM (2003) national reporting framework and the needs of the Commission d’étude sur la gestion de la forêt publique québécoise (Commission for the Study of Public Forest Management in Québec, commonly known as the Coulombe Commission, which contributed funding for the survey work in Quebec). This commission has provided recommendations to the Quebec government on major changes to the provincial forest management system, including the role of public participation processes, and insights from the survey reported here were used by the Commission in formulating its report (Commission for the Study of Public Forest Management in Québec 2004). To ensure that these requirements were met, the selection of Quebec committees was not totally random. Committees were selected from

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each of several specific geographic regions of the province. Also, only administrative regions with at least 50% public forest land were considered for inclusion. The need to find a balance between regions that were remote and those that were adjacent to major urban centres (i.e., Montréal, Québec and Ottawa-Gatineau) was also taken into consideration. These procedures resulted in the selection of 42 committees out of a total of 108 known committees that were advising either a forest company, a municipal government, or another group in the design of public forest management plans. Committees that were addressing forestry issues but were not providing advice on management plans were not included in the survey. Attempts were made to survey all known advisory committees associated with forest management in all of the other provinces. No central registry of advisory committees exists and advisory committee membership is dynamic in some provinces; it was therefore impossible to achieve a complete census of committees in each province. In addition, some committees that were invited to participate in the survey chose not to do so. For instance, in Ontario 40 local citizen committees were identified but members from only 30 committees participated. The lowest participation was in British Columbia, where 8 of 17 identified committees participated (see

Table 1 for details on each province). Given the lower participation rates in some jurisdictions, it is important to consider the results from this survey with some caution.The reasons for nonresponse are not entirely clear, however, and bias in the sample is difficult to detect because little is known about nonparticipants. To some extent, nonresponse was likely due to the methods by which committee members were recruited. As noted in the following section, in most cases, the committee chairs acted as gatekeepers, and the general level of enthusiasm for the survey as expressed by the chairs to the committee members was probably a major factor in group participation. Another weakness of this study is that it could not obtain the views of former committee members who had dropped out of a committee because of high levels of dissatisfaction. Therefore, the results are probably biased toward the views of local residents who continued to participate in committee processes and who were relatively more satisfied with existing processes and away from those who were no longer active in such committees. This sentiment was reflected by one former committee member who did participate in the study. “I am no longer on the committee because I don’t feel it served an important purpose as stated earlier. We didn’t work on forest management but on public education.”

Table 1. Representation of forest advisory committees and committee members, by province Province

British Columbia Alberta Saskatchewan Manitoba Ontario Quebec New Brunswick Nova Scotia Newfoundland Total aStratified

No. of survey respondents 77 128 37 39 253 408 111 12 14 1079

% of all survey respondents 7.1 11.9 3.4 3.6 23.4 37.8 10.3 1.1 1.3 100

No. of committees identified 17 14 3 4 40 108a 6 2 2 196

sampling techniques were used to select participating committees in Quebec. Table 2 refers to committee member surveys only.

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No. of committees participating 8 9 2 3 30 42 5 2 1 102

% of all committees represented 7.8 8.8 2.0 2.9 29.4 41.2 4.9 2.0 1.0 100

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Administration of the Survey Questionnaire for Advisory Committee Chairs The procedures for the questionnaire for advisory committee chairs, as well as the questionnaire for committee members (discussed below), followed the Dillman Tailored Design Method (Dillman 2000). For jurisdictions outside Quebec, questionnaires were sent to a total of 83 committee chairs (see questionnaire in Appendix 1). An email attachment or on-line questionnaire was used for all contacts who had email or Internet access (n = 64), and questionnaires were sent by mail for all others (n = 19). The survey was initiated in mid-September 2004. Two weeks later, those completing the questionnaire electronically received a reminder email. Two weeks after that, a final reminder email or a reminder letter with a copy of the questionnaire (depending on the original method of distribution) was sent to chairs who had not yet responded. For the chairs of Quebec committees, all questionnaires were sent by mail, and follow-up phone calls were made to verify that they had received and completed the questionnaire. Questionnaire for Committee Members The questionnaire for committee members (Appendix 2) was distributed in one of two ways: directly to the committee member by mail or, where committee member information was not available

to the authors, indirectly to the committee member through the committee chair or another contact person. For all jurisdictions except Quebec, the questionnaires were mailed out or distributed to contacts in early April 2004. A reminder was sent to committee contacts in May and a reminder letter with a second copy of the questionnaire was sent to committee members for whom mailing addresses were available in early June. A final reminder notice was mailed to members in mid-September. In an effort to bolster the lower response rates from some Ontario committees, researchers made personal visits to several committees in fall 2004. In Quebec, the study was delayed because of challenges posed by the large number of advisory committees that were identified and by the constraints of collaboration on another research project. In this province, all questionnaires were delivered by mail in the period from June to September, as contact information was collected. Most members had been notified by the chair of the committee that they would be contacted for this study. Two or three weeks after the questionnaire was first sent, a reminder card was posted to committee members who had not yet responded. About a month after the first mailing, a second questionnaire was sent to nonrespondents. Sixty-one questionnaires were returned because of bad addresses, and a total of 2256 questionnaires were distributed to committee members across the country (Table 2).

Table 2. Delivery of surveys to members of Canadian forest advisory committees Distribution method Mailed to committee members Mailed to committee chair or contact Total aNA

No. of questionnaires No. distributed not delivered 1498 61 819 NAa 2317 61

No. delivered 1437 819 2256

= not applicable. Questionnaires sent to chairs or contacts afforded no opportunity for follow-up with individual committee members and therefore no information on the number of questionnaires delivered.

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Data Analysis

For most questionnaires completed by committee chairs, data entry occurred automatically as respondents completed the on-line questionnaire. Project staff entered data for all other questionnaires as they arrived by mail. For the committee member questionnaire, data entry for the English version was performed throughout fall 2004 in Edmonton, and data entry for the French version was performed in Fredericton over the same period. In both locations, project staff entered the data manually from each questionnaire to a spreadsheet. A common code book for quantitative data was developed to facilitate merging of databases and

subsequent national analysis. For all quantitative data, the SPSS 12.0 for Windows (SPSS 2003) statistical software program was used to generate descriptive statistics. For all qualitative data (e.g., open-ended questions and questions requiring additional categorization), the QRS NVivo 2.0 (QRS NVivo 2002) qualitative software analysis program was used to assist with data organization and thematic coding. Qualitative data analysis was conducted separately in English and French, with a coordinated effort to combine results on several key questions. This report focuses on results from the descriptive statistics, but the results from several key open-ended questions are also discussed.

RESULTS Descriptive statistics are reported for most items from both questionnaires. In a few cases, data are not reported because the researchers thought that some respondents had misunderstood a question and hence that results were inaccurate. In addition, the responses to several of the openended questions will require further analysis and hence are not reported here; these results will be reported later. The number of committees represented by responses to the survey of committee chairs (n = 101) was slightly different than the number of committees represented by responses to the survey of committee members (n = 102) because some committees participated in one survey and not the other; the distribution among regions also differed.

Response Rates For the survey of committee chairs, 60 of the 83 questionnaires distributed outside of Quebec were returned, resulting in a response rate of 72%. In Quebec, 41 of 42 questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 98%. Of the 2256 questionnaires distributed to committee members, 1079 were returned, for an overall response rate of 47.8% (Table 1).

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Results of Survey of Committee Chairs The survey of committee chairs was designed to obtain information about advisory committees that could be more easily provided by the sponsoring agency or the committee chair. It was hoped that this information would provide insight into several key committee attributes and hence context for the responses to the committee member survey. There was an average of 21 members on the mailing list of the 101 committees for which a response was received from the committee chair, with the largest lists in the Prairies region (defined as Manitoba and Saskatchewan; see explanation below) and the smallest lists in Ontario (Table 3). On average, 13 members typically attended meetings, with the highest attendance in the Prairies region and the lowest attendance in Ontario. On average, committees across Canada held eight meetings per year (Table 4). The frequency of meetings was highest in the Atlantic region (12) and lowest in the Prairies region (4). In 2004, committees had been operating for an average of 6.2 years, with the oldest committees in Ontario and Alberta and the youngest committees in

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British Columbia and Quebec. Some jurisdictions have a longer history with advisory committees than is reflected in Table 4. For instance, the land and resource management plan initiative in British Columbia was put into place more than 6 years ago, although it now appears to be giving way to more industry-driven processes. In Quebec, the emergence of numerous local committees in recent years reflects recent changes in provincial legislation. One of the key distinctions among committees across Canada involves their sources of sponsorship (Table 5). In some regions, such as Ontario, the vast majority of committees whose chairs participated in the survey were sponsored by the provincial government. In other regions, including Alberta and British Columbia, all of the committees were sponsored by forest companies; in Quebec there was much more diversity in committee sponsorship. Most of the committees sponsored by forest companies were associated with certification activities, which mandate the use of advisory committees; see the guidelines of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC 2005) and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA 2002). Sources for committee facilitation were varied, with a considerable number of committees using professional facilitators (Table 6). A number of committees also relied on forestry company representatives or provincial and local government representatives to facilitate meetings, especially in Ontario. Most committees were called on to make decisions about various courses of action that would form the basis of recommendations to the sponsoring agency, and Table 7 shows the types of decision-making processes used by advisory committees. Some committees provided input

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into the development of local management standards negotiated between the sponsoring agency and the advisory committee. To make such recommendations, committees require some formal mechanism for making decisions and putting ideas forward to the sponsoring agency. For most committees in each region, this mechanism was a consensus-building process. As reported later, numerous committee members indicated that such processes were challenging; it was also challenging for the committees to put forward the majority view without compromising the interests of those in the minority (see section titled “Opinions on sponsorship and group process”). Some committees have attempted to develop a combination of consensus-building and voting techniques to assist in breaking deadlocks and in allowing the committee to move ahead with decisions in the absence of a clear consensus. Finally, the survey of committee chairs provided some information about the frequency and types of compensation for committee members (Table 8). The majority of committees in all regions except Quebec provided some form of payment for transportation costs; only 4 of 30 committees in Quebec offered financial assistance for transportation to all members. For all other major categories of payment, the frequency of assistance was much lower. For instance, the majority of sponsors in two provinces, Ontario and Alberta, provided per diems, yet no committees in these provinces provided payment for child care and only a few provided compensation for loss of income. More committees provided financial assistance for conference travel, meals, refreshments, and items such as shirts, hats, and jackets featuring the logo of the committee or the sponsoring agency.

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Table 3. Number of chairs of forest advisory committees surveyed, size of committee mailing lists, and meeting average attendance, by region Region

Atlantica Quebec Ontario Prairiesb Alberta British Columbia Total or averagec

Average no. of committee members

No. of chairs surveyed 8 41 25 4 11 12 101

23 21 16 46 27 20 21

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. cThis value is the overall average of all individual data.

Average no. of committee members who attend

Newfoundland.

14 14 10 16 14 11 13

Table 4. Frequency of meetings and duration of existence for forest advisory committees Region

Atlantica Quebec Ontario Prairiesb Alberta British Columbia Average

No. of committees participating 8 42 30 5 9 8 17

Avg. no. of Avg. duration meetings per of existence year (yr) 12 6 9 4 8 6 8

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

6.5 3.4 9.9 7.6 9.6 4.0 6.2

Newfoundland.

Table 5. Sponsoring agencies for forest advisory committees Region

Atlantica

Quebec Ontario Prairiesb Alberta British Columbia Total

Forestry company 7 17 2 4 11 12 53

Provincial government 1 4 23 0 0 0 28

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

8

Local or regional government 0 19 0 0 0 0 19

Newfoundland.

Other 0 1 0 0 0 0 1

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Table 6. Types of facilitation for committee meetings No. of committees, by region Atlantica

Type of facilitation

Professional facilitator Representative of the forestry company Provincial government representative Community member Committee member Chair Local government representative Other Total

Quebec

0 6 0 2 0 0 0 0 8

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Ontario

14 4 1 3 1 1 7 2 33

0 2 10 6 4 2 0 1 25

Newfoundland.

Prairiesb

British Columbia

Alberta

2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 4

6 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 11

5 4 0 2 0 0 0 1 12

Table 7. Type of decision-making processes used by forest advisory committees

No. of committees, by region

Type of decision-making Consensus Vote Combination Advisory only

Atlantica 2 3 0 0

Quebec

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

28 2 4 2

Prairiesb

Ontario

Newfoundland.

17 5 1 2

British Columbia

Alberta

3 0 1 0

8 2 1 0

10 1 0 1

Note: For the Atlantic region, 3 chairs did not answer this question.

Table 8. Types of compensation for members of forest advisory committees No. of committees, by region Quebec

Ontario

Prairiesb

Alberta

British Columbia

5 2

4 26

21 1

4 0

9 2

10 2

1 5

1 31

9 8

0 4

7 2

3 6

0 5

0 33

0 9

0 3

0 7

0 5

1 5

0 33

1 9

0 3

1 7

0 7

0 2

8 25

9 5

3 0

4 3

5 0

Type of compensation Atlantica Transport expenses Yes No Per diem Yes No Child care expenses Yes No Loss of income Yes No Otherc Yes No

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. cAccommodation, meals and refreshments, conferences, or items with logo.

Numbers do not reflect total number of committees in each region because some chairs did not answer all questions.

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9

Results of Survey of Committee Members There were important differences in the numbers of committee members surveyed in various jurisdictions, and most results are therefore presented by region. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland were grouped to form the Atlantic region, and Manitoba and Saskatchewan were combined to form the Prairies region. The proportion of responses that each region contributed to the total as well as the actual sample sizes are presented in Figure 1.

Atlantic (137) 12.7%

British Columbia (77) 7.1%

Alberta (128)

11.9% 7.2% Prairies (78) Quebec (408)

37.8% 23.3% Ontario (251)

Figure 1.

Distribution of respondents by region (n = 1079).

The provinces have different areas of forest land, so the survey results were weighted, such that each province’s contribution to the total, labelled “Canada” in tables and graphics, would reflect the proportion of forest land that it contributes to the national total. For example, respondents from British Columbia accounted for 7% of survey respondents, but the province contains 19% of Canada’s forest land; conversely, the Atlantic region accounted for 13% of survey respondents

10

but contains 7% of Canada’s forest. Factors were used to calculate the totals for Canada in the tables to bring the contribution of each region closer to the area of forest that is represented within each region. Demographic Information Age data for respondents are reported in Table 9, with more detailed demographic information provided in Appendix 3. Quebec respondents were much younger than those from elsewhere, with an average age of 44.8 years. Overall, 18.7% of the respondents were women, with the highest percentage of female respondents coming from British Columbia (31.6%) and the lowest from the Prairies region (10.3%). The national average of respondents who considered themselves Aboriginal was 7.2%; the Prairies had the highest percentage (20.8%) and Quebec the lowest (2.9%) (Fig. 2). The higher proportion of Aboriginal committee members in the Prairies region is due in part to legislative requirements in Saskatchewan that require comanagement arrangements with Aboriginal peoples. Almost half of respondents reported belonging to a community or social service group (44.6%), and 10.6% of respondents reported belonging to a natural history or bird-watching club. On average, over half of the respondents (54.1%) reported belonging to a household dependent on a resource industry. Just under 10% (9.6%) of respondents had not completed high school, with the highest proportion in the Prairies region (15.4%). More than a third (34.4%) had a university degree, with the highest proportion of degree holders in Quebec (36.9%). Quebec also had a high proportion of respondents with a graduate degree (19.0%) (the national average was 13.3%).

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Table 9. Age of respondents (members of forest advisory committees)a Region

Mean

Atlanticb

51.1a 44.8b 52.6a 54.4a 49.8a 51.1a 50.1

Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada

% of respondents, by age group (yr)

18–35 10.4 25.3 9.5 6.4 10.2 10.5 13.6

36–50 37.8 43.9 30.2 30.8 43.0 39.5 37.7

aAny two means that are followed by different letters are significantly different bAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. cPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

51–60 32.6 20.9 35.1 33.3 25.8 28.9 28.8

≥61

19.3 9.8 25.2 29.5 21.1 21.1 19.9

(p < 0.5; Tukey’s test; n = 1046).

% of respondents

35 30 25 20 15 10 Female

5 0

Aboriginal Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Region Figure 2.

British Columbia

Canada

Percentage of respondents who self-identified as female and/or Aboriginal by region. Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Committee Involvement The duration of respondents’ involvement with a committee was similar among most regions, with only Quebec differing significantly from the Atlantic, Ontario, and Alberta regions (Table 10). For all regions except Ontario, a concern about the impact of the forest industry on the environment was the reason cited most often for participating in the advisory committees (Appendix 4). Ontario respondents most often identified a desire to contribute to planning as their motivation to participate, and this reason was the second most frequently identified motivation for respondents in the Atlantic, Quebec, Prairies, and British Columbia regions. There were also

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Alberta

some significant differences in the reasons given for participating. For example, 54.5% of Alberta respondents and 81.1% of BC respondents cited concern for other (nonforestry) jobs. Also, a much greater proportion of Quebec respondents indicated that participation was a requirement of their job (Fig. 3) and that the agency sponsoring the committee had invited them to join the committee. These responses indicate some important institutional and motivational differences among committee members in different regions of the country. The respondents differed in terms of the views they had been selected to represent and those they were seeking to represent (Appendix 5). Overall,

11

although few respondents had been selected to represent the public at large, many respondents sought to do so (Table 11). This discrepancy was least pronounced in Quebec, but still represented a difference of more than 15 percentage points. There was also a notable difference in many regions between the proportions of committee members selected and seeking to represent their own views. This difference was particularly notable in British Columbia, where 21.5% of respondents had been selected to represent their own views but only 10.9% were seeking to do so.

than men agreed that all values were represented (68.7% versus 77.0%). Of the respondents who did not think that the committee represented the values of all interested and affected groups, 273 provided statements about who was not represented. The absence of Aboriginal or First Nations groups was mentioned by 31.1% of these respondents and the absence of environment and wildlife-oriented interests by 13.2%. In addition, recreation users, the general public (those representing more general interests rather than specific interests), tourism, the oil and gas industry, and youth were also thought to be unrepresented on some committees. Table 12 lists all of the unrepresented groups that were mentioned by at least one respondent.

The majority of respondents (>60%) in all regions felt that the committees represented the values of all interested parties; this sentiment was stronger in the Atlantic and Quebec regions (>80%) (Fig. 4). Overall, significantly fewer women

Table 10. Duration of members’ involvement with forest advisory committeesa % of respondents, by duration of involvement (yr) Region

Mean

Atlanticb

4.9a 2.7b 5.4a 3.6ab 5.8a 3.6ab 4.2

Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada

5

23.0 15.1 11.8 26.0 22.0 11.4 16.5

28.6 8.4 43.2 16.4 33.3 20.0 23.1

(p < 0.5; Tukey’s test; n = 978).

Table 11. Representation of specific views by members of forest advisory committees % of respondents, by region Views represented

The public at large Selected Seeking My own views Selected Seeking

Quebec

Ontario

Prairiesb

6.6 28.6

0.5 16.3

18.4 35.3

3.1 30.2

5.7 23.8

9.2 34.4

7.1 27.1

8.5 19.6

0.5 1.4

4.2 7.5

6.3 11.1

1.9 10.5

21.5 10.9

7.1 8.1

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

12

British Alberta Columbia Canada

Atlantica

Newfoundland.

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70

% of respondents

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Alberta

Region Figure 3.

British Columbia

Canada

Percentage of respondents who indicated a requirement to attend committee meetings as a part of their job (n = 1038). Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

90

% of respondents

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Region Figure 4.

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Alberta

British Columbia

Canada

Percentage of respondents who agreed that their committee region represents values of all interested and affected groups (n = 1025). Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

13

Table 12. Groups not represented on forest advisory committeesa Group

Aboriginal Environment Recreation General public Tourism Oil and gas industry Youth Business Government Forest workers Nontimber forest products Trappers Scientists or researchers Mining Farmers Women Alternative forestry practitioners Landowners Unions Local residents Educators Fisheries Future generations Nonlocal citizens aData

% of respondents who identified group 31.1 13.2 8.0 6.6 5.1 4.4 3.3 2.6 2.6 2.5 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.5 1.1 1.1 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4

provided by 273 individual members of committees.

Forest Values Respondents were presented with 16 statements representing four categories of forest values (existence, spiritual, inherent worth, and economic or utilitarian) and were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement (Appendixes 6 to 9). There were no significant differences among regions for the existence value related to the importance of maintaining forests for future generations, and over 95% of all respondents agreed with both statements about existence values (Table 13). There were no differences among regions for one of the statements associated with spiritual values (Appendix 7): between 82.4% and 89.7%

14

of respondents agreed with the statement that humans should have more respect and admiration for the forest. The spiritual values statement that forests are sacred places garnered the least agreement in this category (from 32.5% to 56.4%). Furthermore, significantly more women than men agreed with this statement (50.9% and 37.2%, respectively) (Fig. 5). The inherent worth category produced significant variability among the regions (Appendix 8). Quebec had the lowest level of agreement that forests should have the right to exist for their own sake (47.6%) (Table 14), and there was a similar level of agreement among Ontario respondents (57.1%); in contrast, the proportion was 76.9% for respondents from the Prairies region. For the statement that wildlife, plants, and humans should have equal rights to live and develop, the level of agreement for Atlantic respondents (79.7) was higher than other regions with the next highest level of agreement from Prairie respondents (70.5%). The final statement in this category, that forests should be left to grow, develop, and succumb to natural forces, produced the least agreement (national average 22.9%). The levels of agreement in Alberta and Quebec differed significantly for all six economic or utilitarian values statements, with Quebec respondents having a higher level of agreement in all cases (Appendix 9). There was a clear gradient of response from eastern Canada (higher agreement) to western Canada (lower agreement) for all statements in this category, but the differences were most significant for two of the statements: that forests should be managed to meet as many human needs as possible and that forests can be improved through management. Also, there were significant differences between men and women in their responses to most of the statements in this category, which indicates that women are more inclined to privilege natural processes over human interventions and human use values. For instance, 61.9% of women but only 46.3% of men disagreed with the statement that “the primary function of forests should be for products and services that are useful to humans” (Fig. 6).

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Table 13. Agreement with statements related to existence values Respondents (%) Mean ratinga

Statement

It is important to maintain the forests for future generations Whether or not I get to visit the forest as much as I like, it is important for me to know that forests exist in my province aBased

Agree

Neither

Disagree

4.91

98.5

0.6

0.9

4.86

96.4

2.1

1.5

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. Sample size ranges from 1026 to 1047.

Table 14. Agreement with statements related to inherent worth values

% of respondents who partly agree or totally agree

Region

Atlantica Quebec Ontario Prairiesb Alberta British Columbia Canada

Forests should have the right to exist for their own sake, regardless of human concerns and uses 60.9 47.6 57.1 76.9 74.0 70.1 62.3

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Wildlife, plants, and humans should have equal rights to live and develop

Newfoundland.

79.7 62.5 65.7 70.5 67.2 60.0 65.5

Forests should be left to grow, develop, and succumb to natural forces without being managed by humans 12.9 16.0 18.7 34.6 21.8 31.2 22.9

% of respondents

60 50 40 30 20 Women

10 0

Men Agree

Neither

Disagree

Response to statement Figure 5.

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Responses to statement that forests are sacred places, by sex.

15

70

% of respondents

60 50 40 30 20 Women

10 0

Men Agree

Neither

Disagree

Response to statement Figure 6.

Responses to statement that the primary function of forests should be for products and services that are useful to humans, by sex. Note: Numbers do not add up to 100 due to the exclusion of “no opinion” values.

Committee Influences Nationally, 87.4% of respondents agreed that the purpose of the committee was clear to them; smaller proportions of respondents in British Columbia (80.6%) and the Prairies region (82.4%) agreed with this statement than the national average (Fig. 7). In discussing and developing consensus on issues, committee members may feel pressure to agree with decisions with which they are not completely comfortable. The most frequently identified source of pressure related to the complexity of the issue (see Table 15 for a summary and Appendix 10 for detailed information). This source of pressure was felt most acutely in Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia. Other sources of pressure to agree with decisions were felt less often, but time constraints and a lack of information contributed to feelings of discomfort for many respondents. Twenty percent of respondents from the Prairies region indicated that a lack of information contributed to a sense

16

of pressure, whereas the national average for this source of pressure was 9.6%. With some variation as noted above, the responses across regions were relatively consistent and reflected similarities in the sources of pressure for advisory committees. There was variability within and among regions in terms of respondents’ views of who had control over setting the committee’s agenda (Fig. 8). Industry was perceived to play a big role (ranging from 28.8% to 43.0%) except in Ontario, where only 8.4% of the respondents felt that industry was the most influential party in setting the meeting agenda. In that region, the provincial government was seen as the most influential (42.4%), which reflects the dominant role of the provincial government in sponsoring Ontario’s committees. In Alberta (48.2%) and Quebec (38.1%), greater proportions of respondents indicated that it was the participants themselves who set the agenda. British Columbia was the only region where more respondents identified the facilitator (33.3%) as the most influential in setting the agenda.

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100

% of respondents

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Alberta

Region Figure 7.

British Columbia

Canada

Percentage of respondents who agreed that the committee purpose is clear (n = 1020). Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Table 15. Frequency of pressure to agree with decisions with which respondents were not completely comfortable % of respondents, by frequency

Source of pressure

Less often

The complexity of the issue A lack of information Time constraints Group pressure Outside pressure

49.4 58.2 62.4 76.8 80.7

Sometimes 33.0 28.1 24.0 13.2 10.6

More often 13.9 9.6 8.5 5.8 3.9

Note: Sources of pressure are listed in descending order. The sum of all rows do not add to 100 because missing values not reported.

50

% of respondents

45 40 35 25

Provincial government officials

20

Industry

15

The facilitator

30

10

The participants

5 0

Other Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Region Figure 8.

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Alberta

British Columbia

Canada

Most influential agency or individual in setting the meeting agenda (n = 966). Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

17

Methods of Learning Nationally, media (48.5%) and friends or relatives (59.3%) were less often accessed by committees as sources of information (Table 16). In contrast, the forest industry (85.7%) and government agencies (76.3%) were the most often reported sources of information. Some regional differences in these results are notable. In the Atlantic region, 45.9% of respondents reported that the committees more often accessed information from firsthand visits to the forest, whereas only 18.9% percent of Quebec respondents did so. In addition, 68.5% of Alberta respondents reported that the committees more often accessed information from research scientists, whereas only 36.6% of Ontario respondents did so (Appendix 11). Although research scientists were not used as sources of information as often as the forest industry or government agencies (48.5%, 85.7%, and 76.3%, respectively; Table 16), they were perceived as the most accurate source of information about forests and forest management (30.7% overall) (Fig. 9). Respondents from the Atlantic region felt that first-hand visits to the forest represented a more accurate source of information than research scientists (20.2% versus 18.6%), and Ontario respondents felt that the forest industry was a more accurate source of information than research scientists (25.6% versus 19.2%). The proportions of respondents from Alberta (5.7%) and British Columbia (7.1%) who reported that government agencies were the

most accurate source of information were notably lower than the national average (18.8%). Media or friends and family were considered the least accurate sources of information by respondents in all regions (Fig. 10). Respondents reported spending more time receiving information from the sponsor of the committee (35.0%) than receiving information from other sources (23.7%) (Fig. 11). More time was spent receiving information from the committee sponsors than on debate and discussion in the Atlantic (38.0% versus 35.0%) and Prairies (40.9% versus 34.6%) regions. Nationally, however, respondents spent more time on debate and discussion (37.4%) than on any other activity. See Appendix 12 for a breakdown of results by province and percentage of time spent on each task. There was a high degree of agreement with various statements about learning and a positive outlook toward the learning aspects of the committee (Appendix 13). Overall, few respondents agreed with the statement that the information learned did not aid them in making forest management decisions (19.6%), but in British Columbia, the level of agreement with this statement was higher, at 30.6% (Table 17). The proportion of respondents who agreed with the statement that processes worked poorly when many different perspectives were represented was also lower than for the positive learning experiences, at 22.9%; in Quebec, the level of agreement with this statement was higher, at 31.5%.

Table 16. Frequency of accessing various sources of information % of respondents, by frequency Source of information

Media (i.e., newspapers, television, radio) Friends or relatives Forest industry Government agencies First-hand visits to the forest Environmental or conservation organizations Research scientists (i.e., biologists, ecologists)

18

Less often 48.5 59.3 2.9 4.6 30.5 25.2 15.2

Sometimes 36.1 30.3 11.3 19.1 41.9 42.1 36.4

More often 15.4 10.4 85.7 76.3 27.6 32.7 48.5

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50

% of respondents

45 40

Media

35

Friends or relatives

30

Forest industry

25

Government agencies

20

First-hand visits to the forest

15

Environmental/ conservation org. Research scientists

10 5 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Alberta

Region Figure 9.

British Columbia

Canada

Perceived most accurate sources of information about forests and forest management (n = 982). Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

50 45

% of respondents

40

Media

35

Friends or relatives

30

Forest industry

25

Government agencies

20

First-hand visits to the forest

15 10

Environmental/ conservation org. Research scientists

5 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Alberta

Region

British Columbia

Canada

Figure 10. Perceived least accurate sources of information about forests and forest management (n = 975). Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Other 3.9%

Discussion and debate

35.0% 37.4%

Receiving information from the sponsor

23.7% Receiving information from other sources

Figure 11. Percentage of time spent on various activities during committee meetings. NOR-X-409

19

Table 17. Agreement with selected statements regarding participation on committee % of respondents who partly agree or totally agree, by region Statement

The information I have learned does not significantly aid me in making forest management decisionsc I have learned that these processes work poorly when there are many different perspectives representedc

Atlantica Quebec

British Ontario Prairiesb Alberta Columbia Canada

23.6

17.3

14.5

16.2

16.0

30.6

19.6

23.2

31.5

22.2

16.4

17.9

19.4

22.9

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. cSignificant difference in percentage of “yes” responses among groups (p < 0.05; Pearson’s

Opinions on Sponsorship and Group Process The questionnaire included numerous questions intended to solicit committee members’ opinions about the sponsoring agencies, other members of the committee, decision-making, and other committee processes. There were no significant differences among regions in how respondents felt about the committee before joining, with a national average of 44.9% of respondents having a positive feeling (Appendix 14). The proportion of respondents who felt positive about the committee after joining rose in all regions to a national average of 77.5% (Fig. 12). A greater proportion of Quebec respondents had a more positive feeling for the committee sponsor before being on the committee (49.8%) than was the case for respondents from the other regions. Similarly, a higher proportion of BC respondents indicated positive feelings before being on the committee (48.0%) but this figure did not increase to the same extent as in other regions after joining the committee (67.0%). In all regions, the proportion of respondents with a positive feeling for the sponsor rose from 49.0% before joining the committee to 67.0% after joining. In British Columbia, this increase was tempered, with 55.0% of respondents having positive feelings toward the sponsor after joining the committee. There were significant differences between men and women (p < 0.05), with 80.0% of men and 70.0% of women feeling positive about the committee after joining. Agreement with general statements related to the forest management process was greatest for the 20

chi-square test).

statement that the process was fair (72.0%). There were no statistically significant differences among regions for the statement that time was poorly spent in the process; on average, 22.7% of respondents agreed with this statement (Appendix 15). Agreement with statements related to the personal experience of respondents in the forest management process was highest for the statement that the respondent had been given adequate opportunity to voice concerns within the committee (88.5%), although a significantly lower number of women than men indicated this to be the case (74.0% versus 89.0%) (Appendix 15). This was also the highest level of agreement for any statement related to the forest management process. Agreement was lower for the statements that respondents were able to influence the decisions made by the committee (58.7%) and that the respondents’ efforts were well spent (66.7%). For these statements, British Columbia respondents had the lowest levels of agreement (47.9% and 55.4%, respectively). Agreement with statements related to decision-making and learning was highest for the statement that the staff of the sponsoring organization provided answers to questions about forest management (83.7%). Only 58.4% of respondents, however, agreed with the statement that they trusted the information presented about the impacts of forest management plans (Appendix 15). There was also a lower level of agreement with the statement that decisions succeeded in accommodating a full spectrum of public interests (57.7%). Only 26.3% of NOR-X-409

respondents agreed that the committee’s decisions are easy to implement. There was 57.2% agreement with the statement that the committee is effective at influencing local forest decision-making, but only 43.3% agreed that they trusted forest managers to make the right choices about forest management (Table 18). For both of these statements, the BC respondents had the lowest levels of agreement (43.8% and 28.0%, respectively). The highest level of agreement for statements regarding the quality of group deliberation (Appendix 16) was with the statement that active discussion is encouraged (85.1%). There was also a high degree of agreement with the statements that participants are shown consideration for their effort (83.5%) and that the committee meetings are interactive and personal (79.9%). Agreement was least for the statements that attendance of regular members is sporadic, which means that time is spent covering old ground (24.3% nationally; variation among regions is illustrated in Figure 13), and that the addition of new members slows progress (33.8%). These two statements also had the highest proportion of respondents who chose a neutral response (21.6% and 29.0%, respectively). In addition to these questions about the quality of group deliberation, respondents were asked if anything could be done to improve the effectiveness of the committee in which they participated. Of the 933 respondents who answered this question, 527 (56.5%) said “yes” and 577 provided information about how this could be achieved. These recommendations varied dramatically, from “taking more field trips to see how things are done in the forest” to “the committee needs to be more independent from industry and should be funded by other means.” In more general terms, however, most of the recommendations fell into three categories: 

inputs to group discussion (field trips, workshops, technical information in advance of meetings, more information from alternative sources, contributions from committee members)

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representation on committee (adequate representation from locally affected groups, regular attendance, opportunities for all members to speak, more attention to local issues, term limits for members to encourage new ideas and perspectives)  processes and procedures (independent and professional facilitator, improved consensus-building and decision-making processes, financial compensation for time on committee, more autonomy from committee sponsors, established procedures and guidelines, more binding decisions that directly influence policy and management practice) Although every committee has its own unique strengths and challenges, these general categories may be useful in exploring the ways in which advisory committees could become more effective as tools for public involvement in the forest management process. 

In the final section of the questionnaire, respondents were asked about their level of satisfaction with various aspects of the committee and the process (Appendix 17). Overall levels of satisfaction were relatively high, particularly in Alberta (Fig. 14). With regard to more specific questions, satisfaction was highest for the quality of information provided for committee discussion (82.7%), with no statistically significant differences among regions for this statement. Respondents also indicated a high degree of satisfaction with the representativeness of the committee (79.2%) and the quality of discussion within the committee (79.7%). Regional variation was notable for these statements. For instance, BC respondents had the lowest degree of satisfaction with the representativeness of the committee (66.2%) and the quality of discussion (68.5%). The lowest degree of satisfaction nationally was for the decision-making process (67.2%); respondents from the Prairies region and British Columbia reported the least degree of satisfaction in this area (56.0% and 56.9%, respectively). Finally, aside from slightly more dissatisfaction among women with the quality of discussion, there were no notable differences in levels of satisfaction with committee processes between men and women.

21

90

% of respondents

80 70 60 50 40 30

Before joining the committee After joining the committee

20 10 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Region

Alberta

British Columbia

Canada

Figure 12. Percentage of respondents who felt positive before and after joining the committee. Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Table 18. Agreement with selected statements related to the forest management planning process

Statement

The process is fair Time is poorly spent in the process I am able to influence the decisions that are made by the committee I have been given adequate opportunity to voice my concerns within the committee I trust forest managers to make the right choices about forest management Decisions succeed in accommodating a full spectrum of public interests This committee is effective at influencing local forest decision-making aBased

Mean ratinga 3.73 2.52 3.51

% of respondents Agree 72.0 22.7 58.7

Neither Disagree 12.6 17.8 28.1

15.4 59.2 13.2

4.24

88.5

7.0

4.5

3.01 3.48 3.45

43.3 57.7 57.2

18.2 21.2 23.4

38.4 21.1 19.4

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories.

22

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40

% of respondents

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Alberta

Region

British Columbia

Canada

Figure 13. Percentage of respondents who agreed that attendance by regular members is sporadic, which means a lot of time is spent covering old ground. Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

90 80

% of respondents

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Atlantic

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

Region

Alberta

British Columbia

Canada

Figure 14. Percentage of respondents who were satisfied with the overall process in which they were involved. Atlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland; Prairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

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23

DISCUSSION

Regional Similarities and Differences Local advisory committees have become a popular means of incorporating public voices into the forest management process. In every region of the country, such committees have been constituted, with sponsorship from forest companies and provincial and local governments. In spite of the vast geographic distances between where committees are based and the very different political and social climates in which they function, there is a striking amount of consistency in the characteristics and functioning of committees and the issues represented by committee members from coast to coast. For instance, many of these committees are struggling to find ways of achieving consensus without compromising the interests and concerns of minority voices. The demographic characteristics of committee members were also consistent in terms of age, sex, and education. A substantial number of members who were selected to represent individual interests also reported seeking to represent the public at large. There was strong consistency in the reasons members gave for participating in such committees, the most important being a concern for the environment and a desire to make a contribution to forest planning. Many of the opinions expressed about group processes and functioning were consistent across the country. For instance, the forest industry was reported as a major source of information for committees in all regions, a high proportion of members considered the committee a place to learn about other perspectives on forest management, and there were relatively high levels of satisfaction with group processes in every region. There were also some important differences in the composition and functioning of committees from coast to coast: 

24

Committees in the Prairies region had the highest number of members on their mailing lists and they met less frequently than those in other regions of the country.









Quebec committee members were much younger than members in other parts of the country, and almost 70% of respondents from Quebec were required to attend as a part of their job. Alberta committee members were more likely to access information from research scientists and they considered this information more accurate than did members from other provinces. BC committees had a larger proportion of women than committees in other regions, and the general level of satisfaction and feelings about the committee and the sponsor were less positive in British Columbia than in other regions of the country. Ontario committees had a higher proportion of members from hunting and fishing association than was the case in other regions. This was, in part, due to the origins of local citizen committees in Ontario.

Measuring Fairness and Effectiveness The reporting framework for the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM 2003) identifies two indicators to measure the fairness and effectiveness of decision-making in forest management, one relating to compliance with provincial and federal laws and regulations and the other relating to satisfaction with public involvement processes. The CCFM also states that “decision-makers [should] try to involve the public in the decision-making process in order to effectively incorporate the full range of social values into decisions and to be responsive to changes in values over time” (CCFM 2003, page 19). The surveys reported here were conducted, in part, to provide national data for CCFM reporting purposes, and specific information toward this end appears within several sections of this report. Levels of satisfaction with various aspects of committee processes are contained within Appendix 17, and the results suggest, for instance, that the overall

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level of satisfaction among committee members in British Columbia was significantly lower than in other regions. In addition to these satisfaction scores, several other aspects of the study provide insights into the issue of fair and effective decisionmaking as outlined below.

members of the general public in Alberta, and Hunt and McFarlane (2002) reported a similar comparison for Ontario. The advisory committee members in both provinces tended to express more support for the human use of natural resources than did members of the general public.

Group Representation As discussed in the section titled “Questionnaire Design,” representation is a key area of interest for researchers because it relates to the diversity of public voices and the extent to which such voices are represented in committee processes. In many regions, the majority of committee members came from households that are dependent on a natural resource industry or agency for employment. In Quebec, many participants were required to attend committee meetings as part of their job. Advisory committee members were typically more educated and earned higher wages than members of the general public, and the proportion of men was higher than in the general public (see McFarlane and Boxall 2000; Hunt and McFarlane 2002 for comparisons with the general public). The data on forest values provide some insights into the range of values represented on advisory committees. There was considerable consistency across regions with regard to some values (such as existence values), but there were also some notable differences between eastern Canada and western Canada, particularly with regard to economic and utilitarian values (Appendix 9). Differences between male and female respondents were most significant for the forest values section of the survey; this has implications for the recommendations generated by the committees, especially given that women are underrepresented on many committees.

Group Process As identified in the section on questionnaire design, researchers have recognized numerous process-related issues such as information sources, time constraints, opportunities for learning, and the use of professional facilitators that are germane to this topic. Although researchers generally agree that the use of professional facilitators can make an important contribution to the quality of committee processes (through the use of techniques for effective dialogue, by providing opportunities for quieter voices to be heard, and by allowing the committee to have some autonomy from the sponsoring agency), the use of professional facilitators is highly variable across the country (Table 6). The use of such facilitators appears to be more common in provinces such as Quebec and Alberta, but less common in the Atlantic region and Ontario.

It would also be instructive to compare the forest values of advisory committee members with those of the general public. Although there is no national-level information on forest values among the general public that could be compared with the findings from this study, this type of analysis would be useful in determining the extent to which advisory committee members represent the general public. For example, McFarlane and Boxall (2000) reported a comparison of forest values between advisory committee members and

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The complexity of issues discussed was for many respondents the primary area of pressure to agree with decisions with which they were not completely comfortable (Appendix 10). Lack of information and time constraints also caused some sense of pressure. The section above describing the results of the survey of committee members provides some insights into the types of information that committee members are accessing and the information sources that are considered to be most accurate. It is also instructive to note the fairly consistent pattern of committee activity whereby members spent approximately 60% of their time passively, receiving information from various sources, and about 40% of their time in discussion and debate (Appendix 12). Although many factors contribute to the fairness and effectiveness of committee process, a general overview of these factors in the survey of committee members suggests that most members considered their own committee process

25

to be fair and effective; 72.0% of respondents across the country agreed that the process in which they were involved was fair and 60.9% of respondents agreed that the process was effective (Appendix 15). This general consensus is tempered to some extent by weaknesses related to the lack of professional facilitation in some regions of the country. Also, there is some evidence that committee members were ambivalent about the effectiveness of committee processes. For instance, 58.4% of respondents trusted the information presented about impacts of forest management, but 41.7% were less sure (20.2% neither agreed nor disagreed and 21.5% disagreed). Similarly, sporadic attendance at meeting may be limiting the effectiveness of some committees (Appendix 16).

Challenges of Consensus Building Along with the challenges associated with ensuring adequate representation of key constituents such as Aboriginal people, environmental groups, and recreation groups, numerous respondents mentioned the challenges associated with consensus-building processes. Among all the aspects of committee activity (Appendix 17), the decision-making process was thought to be the least satisfactory. This result is consistent with respondents’ concerns about the challenges of reaching a consensus while attempting to respect dissension and minority perspectives. Along these lines, one committee member suggested that “since we worked on consensus, there needs to be a fuller understanding of what that means and how someone can disagree and have that acknowledged.” This perspective was expressed in different ways by many of the respondents. Many of the comments about improving the effectiveness of advisory committees also reflect this challenge. For instance, one respondent mentioned that “committee members must see other interest [groups’] point of view and have room for sharing views…[we need fewer] negative people on the committee and training on consensus achievement.” These comments reflect one of the core challenges in small groups that are characterized by a diversity of public values and that are charged with developing a shared understanding of issues.

26

Alternative Views on Committee Effectiveness Although this study provides information about the fairness and effectiveness of public advisory committees in terms of reported levels of satisfaction and issues of representation, it is important to note that an assessment of this nature is an inherently difficult research endeavour, involving key assumptions or normative claims about what it means to have an effective public advisory process. It is natural to assume that practitioners and sponsors of advisory committees are interested in seeking efficient and harmonious group processes. For many groups, the initial years of activity tend to be more challenging in this regard, but as committee members become more familiar with the issues and develop a shared sense of understanding, group processes mature and the efficiency of those processes appears to improve. Some researchers, however, observe this evolution of group processes in a much different light. For these analysts, an effective public process is one that promotes and maintains a level of constructive discord among group members, which in turn fuels vigorous public dialogue on current resource management issues. In such committees a sense of shared understanding is slow in coming, and sponsoring agencies and decision-makers benefit from a local-level dialogue that reflects in some sense the larger debates within scientific circles and within civil society about the status of forest resources. Results from the advisory committee members in British Columbia provide a case in point. On the basis of results from this survey, one might be tempted to suggest that the BC committees are the least effective of all committees in Canada because the BC respondents reported higher levels of dissatisfaction with learning processes, were less positive about being on their respective committees, and were generally less satisfied with the overall process. From another point of view, higher levels of satisfaction in other regions may simply mean that dissatisfied members have been more efficiently dispatched from the committees in those regions or that the perspectives of committee members were more homogenous from the outset.

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In both cases, the representation of a broad range of values is likely to be affected and the quality of dialogue and debate is likely to suffer. If one goal of these committees is to bring a diversity of perspectives to the table, the fact that BC members and their committee processes are more discordant may mean that they are also more effective at bringing multiple points of view to bear on various issues. This perspective is supported by

the fact that 21.5% of BC respondents had been selected to represent their own views (whereas the national average was 7.1%) (Appendix 5). This alternative approach to understanding the effectiveness of advisory committees tends to examine measures of fairness and effectiveness from a different perspective and complicates the analysis by exposing the normative claims behind many of the measures used to study public participation processes.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS This study provides a baseline assessment of advisory committees in the Canadian forest sector. It also provides insights into several important aspects of effective group processes, including information on the extent to which committees provide opportunities for people with a wide range of knowledge and interests to contribute to committee discussions and to influence the decision-making process. It also provides some information on how the committees function, with insights into their sources of information, the perceived accuracy of various information sources, the time spent on various activities, the learning outcomes from group processes, and opinions about group processes such as consideration of controversial issues and satisfaction with the processes.These results provide some opportunities to comment on the challenges of incorporating a wide range of public interests in a small-scale process located primarily in rural and resourcebased communities. The study also points to challenges associated with consensus building, which appears to have been a key area of concern for survey respondents, one that could ultimately lead to improvements in committee processes. With some variation across regions, evidence from this study suggests that the majority of advisory committee members who participated in this study were satisfied with their experience. It is important to note, however, that satisfaction surveys

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of this nature are inherently biased toward those who have decided to participate in such committees, which necessarily yields a more positive outlook than more in-depth research methods might reveal (e.g., case studies). Surveys of this nature do not provide insights into the individuals and organizations who do not see such committees as productive places for public dialogue and debate. Some respondents found the committees to be focused on public education rather than public dialogue. Others were frustrated by the lack of opportunity to meaningfully influence the decisionmaking process. In addition, other data gathered in the study provide insights about the deficiencies of public representation. A significant proportion of respondents expressed concerns about lack of representation of certain groups, chronic absences from committee meetings, and lack of opportunity for minority positions to be expressed and taken seriously. Although the advisory committee process in the forest sector has become a dominant method of public participation, many other methods are available. Open houses and public hearings represent more common approaches within the natural resource sector, but the social sciences offer a rich variety of alternative mechanisms, including citizen juries, deliberative polling, focus groups, random sample survey research, personal interviews, and participatory landscape visualization techniques.

27

All of these processes have their strengths and weaknesses, but they can be combined in creative ways to construct a well-balanced public participation program. For instance, Beckley et al. (2005) showed that advisory committees are effective in promoting open dialogue and adapting to new information as it becomes available, but they are less effective in providing opportunities for broadbased representation of public values. Conversely, surveys are effective for gaining information about public values but are less flexible and provide little opportunity for dialogue and learning. Other researchers have identified a range of possible public participation methods that may be appropriate at various points within the environmental planning context (Mitchell and Parkins 2005; Sinclair and Diduck 2005). In light of the concerns about consensus building in particular, several suggestions are presented here as ways to improve this key process: 





28

Make use of a professional facilitator. Ideally, facilitators are independent from sponsoring agencies and will act as neutral players in committee meetings. Some key roles for facilitators are to provide consistency in group procedures, to prevent individuals or groups from dominating discussion, and to allow opportunities for minority voices to participate. Engage in training activities with a professional facilitator or an independent organization to improve procedures for consensus building and decision making within collaborative settings. Organizations such as the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2 2005) provide opportunities for training at their annual conferences. Given that the average age of committee members was 50 years (Table 9), consider ways of attracting more youth to the table. This might be accomplished through a youth sponsorship program or a designated chair for youth issues on the committee.

Given that female respondents held different forest values than their male counterparts, consider ways of building more female representation into committee processes. Working toward a balance of male and female committee members will lead to a more accurate representation of public values.  In the interests of fostering dialogue and maintaining contact with a wide range of local interests, find ways of extending advisory committee activities to the surrounding community. Presentations by local human service agencies, environmental organizations, and other government or nongovernment organizations represent important opportunities for dialogue and learning. Advisory committees may also act as sponsors of public sessions on local “hot topics” in the forest sector. Finally, term limits on membership and ways of bringing new members on board could be considered.  Establish a national network of advisory committees for the purpose of learning from other committees and working on common challenges. The decentralized nature of advisory committees in the forest sector causes isolation from other committees that are working on similar issues and dealing with the same challenges. A network of such committees may provide opportunities for learning and sharing experiences. In addition to repeating the measurements made with these surveys, future research with advisory committees may involve experimenting with innovations in advisory committee activity. For instance, certain styles of group facilitation can foster group learning, development of common ground and a shared understanding of the issues. These experiments, especially if performed in conjunction with researchers, may lead to improvements in advisory committee processes and greater integration of public interests and public knowledge into forest planning. 

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Major funding for this study was provided by the Sustainable Forest Management Network at the University of Alberta and the Commission d’étude sur la gestion de la forêt publique québécoise (Commission for the Study of Public Forest Management in Québec), commonly known as the Coulombe Commission. The Laurentian forestry Centre also provided financial support for survey costs in Quebec. Additional human and financial resources were provided by the institutions represented by the project team: the Canadian Forest Service (Northern Forestry Centre and Atlantic Forestry Centre), the

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and the University of Saskatchewan. Catherine Martineau Delisle, PhD candidate at Université Laval, was instrumental in identifying committees and collecting data, and her work made it possible to survey the Quebec committees extensively. Marke Ambard, Christy Nickerson, Jeff Moore, and JeanFrançois Fortin also made valuable contributions to the project. Finally, we express our gratitude to all of the committee members and chairs from across the country who participated in this study and provided valuable insights into their experiences with advisory committees.

LITERATURE CITED Beckley, T.M.; Parkins, J.R.; Sheppard, S.R.J. 2005. Public participation in sustainable forest management: a reference guide. Sustainable Forest Management Network, Edmonton, AB. 55 p. [CCFM] Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. 2003. Defining sustainable forest management: criteria and indicators. Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, ON. [CSA] Canadian Standards Association. 2002. Standard CAN/SCA-Z809-02. Sustainable forest management: requirements and guidance [standard on-line]. Mississauga, ON. Accessed 26 May 2006. . Chess, C. 2000. Evaluating environmental public participation: methodological questions. J. Environ. Plan. Manage. 43(6):769–784. Carr, D.S.; Halvorsen, K. 2001. An evaluation of three democratic, community-based approaches to citizen participation: surveys, conversations with community groups, and community dinners. Soc. Nat. Resour. 14:107–126. Coglianese, C. 2003. Is satisfaction success? Evaluating public participation in regulatory policymaking. Pages 69–86 in R. O’Leary and L.B. Bingham, eds. The promise and performance of environmental conflict resolution. Resources for the Future, Washington, DC. Commission for the Study of Public Forest Management in Québec. 2004. Final report summary [on-line]. Accessed 14 Oct 2005. . Dillman, D. A. 2000. Mail and internet surveys: the tailored design method. John Wiley and Sons, New York.

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[FSC] Forest Stewardship Council. 2005. National boreal standard [on-line]. Accessed 29 Jun 2005. . Gundry, K.; Heberlein, T. 1984. Do public meetings represent the public? J. Am. Plan. Assoc., Spring: 175–182. Halvorsen, K.E. 2001. Assessing public participation techniques for comfort, convenience, satisfaction, and deliberation. Environ. Manage. 28(2):179–186. Higgelke, P.E.; Duinker, P.N. 1993. Open doors: public participation in forest management in Canada. Report to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association and Forestry Canada, School of Forestry, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON. Homenuck, P.; Durlak, J.; Morgenstern, J. 1977. Evaluation of public participation programs. Pages 103–119 in B. Sadler, ed. Involvement and environment: proceedings of the Canadian conference of public participation (October 4-7, Banff, Alberta). Environment Council of Alberta, Edmonton, AB. (Vol. 1. A review of issues and approaches). Hunt, L.; McFarlane, B.L. 2002. Views about forest management in Ontario: highlights from surveys with the Ontario public. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Centre for Northern Forest Ecosystem Research, Thunder Bay, ON. CNFER Tech. Rep. TR-010. [IAP2] International Association for Public Participation. 2005. Resources [on-line]. Denver, CO. Accessed 8 Feb 2006. .

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[ Joint FAO/ECE/ILO Committee] Joint FAO/ECE/ILO Committee on Forest Technology, Management, and Training. 2000. Public participation in forestry in Europe and North America. Report of the Team of Specialists on Participation in Forestry. International Labour Office, Sectoral Activities Department, Geneva, Switzerland. Lauber, T.B.; Knuth, B.A. 1999. Measuring fairness in citizen participation: a case study of moose management. Soc. Nat. Resour. 11:19–37. Lawrence, R.L.; Daniels, S.E.; Stankey, G.H. 1997. Procedural justice and public involvement in natural resource decision making. Soc. Nat. Resour. 10:577–589. McComas, K.A. 2001. Public meetings about local waste management problems: Comparing participants and nonparticipants. Environ. Manage. 27(1):135–147. McFarlane, B.L.; Boxall, P.C. 2000. Forest values and attitudes of the public, environmentalists, professional foresters, and members of public advisory groups in Alberta. Nat. Resour. Can., Can. For. Serv., North. For. Cent., Edmonton, AB. Inf. Rep. NOR-X-374. McGurk, B.; Sinclair, A.J.; Diduck, A. 2006. An assessment of stakeholder advisory committees in forest management: case studies from Manitoba, Canada. Soc. Nat. Resour. 19(9):809–826. Minister of Natural Resources of the Province of Ontario. 2002. State of the forest report, 2001 [on-line]. Peterborough, ON. Accessed 14 Oct 2005. . Mitchell, R.E.; Parkins, J.R. 2005. A practitioner’s guide to public deliberation in natural resource management. Nat. Resour. Can., Can. For. Serv., North. For. Cent., Edmonton, AB. Inf. Rep. NOR-X-407.

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Parkins, J.R.; Mitchell, R.E. 2005. Public participation as public debate: a deliberative turn in natural resource management. Soc. Nat. Resour. 18(6):529–540.

Parkins, J.R.; Stedman, R.C.; McFarlane, B.L. 2001. Public involvement in forest management and planning: a comparative analysis of attitudes and preferences in Alberta. Nat. Resour. Can., Can. For. Serv., North. For. Cent., Edmonton, AB. Inf. Rep. NOR-X-382. QRS Nvivo. 2002. (QRS NVivo 2.0). QRS International PTY Ltd, Victoria, Australia. Rowe, G.; Frewer, L.J. 2000. Public participation methods: a framework for evaluation. Sci. Technol. Hum. Values 25(1):3–29. Shindler, B.; Neburka, J. 1997. Public participation in forest planning: 8 attributes of success. J. For. 95(1):17–19. Sinclair, A.J.; Diduck, A.P. 2001. Public involvement in EA in Canada: a transformative learning perspective. Environ. Impact Assess. Rev. 21:113–136.

Sinclair, A.J.; Diduck, A. 2005. Public participation in Canadian environmental assessment: enduring challenges and future directions. Pages 53–74 in K.S. Hanna, ed. Environmental impact assessment: practice and participation. Oxford Univ. Pr., Don Mills, ON.

SPSS. 2003. (SPSS 12.0 for Windows). MapInfo Corporation, Troy, New York. Tanz, J.S.; Howard, A.F. 1991. Meaningful public participation in the planning and management of publicly owned forests. For. Chron. 67(2):125–130. Tuler, S.; Webler, T. 1999. Voices from the forest: what participants expect of a public participation process. Soc. Nat. Resour. 12:437–453.

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APPENDIXES

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Appendix 1 .

Questionnaire for advisory committee chairs

1.

What is the name of this committee?

2.

Are there other advisory committees to which you belong? ■ Yes ■ No If yes, please list names of other committees: _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________

3.

How many members are on the committee’s mailing list? ______________________________________

4.

How many people attend committee meetings strictly in an advisory capacity? ____________________

5.

How many members typically attend meetings?____________

6.

Approximately how many times does the committee meet over the course of one year? _____________

7.

How long has the committee been in existence? ______ Years

8.

Who is the sponsoring agency? Please check (✓) one box below. ■ A forestry company ■ The provincial government ■ Other (please specify)___________________________

9.

Why was the committee created? Please record your answer below. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________

10. Who facilitates the committee? Please check (✓) one box below. ■ A professional facilitator ■ A representative of the forestry company ■ A provincial representative ■ A community member ■ Other (Please specify)__________________________ 11. How are participants for the committee recruited? Please record your answer below. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 12. What is the official mandate of the committee? Please record your answer below. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 13. How are decisions made within the committee? Please check (✓) one box below. ■ Consensus

(Go to Question #14)

■ Vote

(Go to Question #14)

■ Other (Specify)

(Go to Question #14)

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14. If decisions are made by consensus, how is consensus achieved? Please record your answer below. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 15. Are the following sources of reimbursement available to committee members? Please indicate ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ by placing a check mark (✓) in the appropriate box. Transport costs

■ Yes ■ No

Per diem

■ Yes ■ No

Childcare expenses

■ Yes ■ No

Loss of income

■ Yes ■ No

Other (Please specify)

■ Yes ■ No

_______________________________________________________________________________________ 16. Does your committee have a ‘terms of reference’? Please check (✓) ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ below. ■ Yes

(Go to Question #17)

■ No 17. Could we please obtain a copy of your committee’s ‘terms of reference’? Please check (✓) ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ below. ■ Yes

(Please attach a copy of your terms of reference)

■ No

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Appendix 2.

Questionnaire for committee members

Public Participation in Forest Management A National Survey of Citizen Committees Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire. In 2003, the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers introduced a revised set of Criteria and Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management. Within this new framework, a core indicator deals with fair and effective decision making and participant satisfaction with public involvement processes. This survey will assist in reporting on this indicator. More specifically, the information you provide will help us understand the functioning and processes of these forest management citizen committees. Please try to answer all the questions. If there are any questions you do not wish to answer, please leave them blank and move to the next question. All information you provide is confidential. Your name will never appear with your answers. Only a summary of everyone’s answers will be made public. Please return your completed questionnaire in the postage paid envelope provided or to your committee chairperson. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact the following project leaders: John Parkins (Principal Investigator) Social Science Research Group, Canadian Forest Service, Edmonton, Alberta Email: [email protected]

780-435-7373

Maureen Reed, University of Saskatchewan John Sinclair, Natural Resources Institute, Manitoba Len Hunt, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Solange Nadeau, Canadian Forest Service, New Brunswick

306-966-5630 204-474-8374 807-343-4007 506-452-2074

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SECTION 1: REPRESENTATION 1.

How long have you been involved with this particular citizen committee? ______ Years

2.

Why did you agree to participate on the committee? Please indicate ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for each of the following statements by placing a check mark (✓) in the appropriate box. For the ‘Yes’ answers, please rate your top five reasons for participating on the committee (1 being your highest priority and 5 the lowest).

Yes

No

Priority

Reason for Involvement I am concerned about forest industry jobs in the area. I am concerned about other jobs in the area. I am concerned about the impact of the forest industry on the environment. I am required to attend as part of my job. The agency that sponsors the committee asked me to join. I want to ensure that science perspectives are included in the process. I want to learn more about forest management in the area. I want to learn more about other industries in the area. I want to ensure that recreational opportunities are not diminished. I am concerned about resource-based tourism in the area. I have business interests that may be affected by the outcome of the process. I want to learn more about land use and forestry planning. I want to learn more about the issues people have in the area. I want to contribute to planning since the forest is a public resource. Other (Please specify) _________________________________

3.

As a member of the committee, whose views were you selected to represent? Please check (✓) one box below. ■ The public at large One of the following stakeholder groups ■ Chamber of commerce ■ Forest industry ■ Recreation group ■ Provincial or federal government ■ Municipal government ■ Community or social service organization (specify) _______ ■ Environmental group ■ Other resource industry (specify) ______________________ ■ Aboriginal organization ■ Other group (specify) _______________________________ ■ My own views ■ Not sure

4.

Although you might have been selected to represent the views of one of the above, whom do you seek to represent? Please check (✓) one box below. ■ The public at large One of the following stakeholder groups ■ Chamber of Commerce ■ Forest industry ■ Recreation group ■ Provincial or Federal government ■ Municipal government ■ Community or Social Service organization (specify) _______ ■ Environmental group ■ Other resource industry (specify) ______________________ ■ Aboriginal organization ■ Other group (specify) _______________________________ ■ My own views ■ Not sure

36

NOR-X-409

5.

In your opinion, does this committee represent the values of all interested and affected groups, even if they are not on the committee? Please check (✓) ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ below. ■ Yes

(Skip to Question #6)

■ No

If No, please indicate the group(s) who is (are), in your opinion, not represented and why you believe this is so.

_______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 6.

One aspect of our study is to understand how people feel about forests. Please circle the number that best reflects your opinion. Neither Totally Partly Agree Nor Disagree Disagree Disagree

Partly Agree

Totally Agree

No Opinion

4

5

6

5

6

a. Whether or not I get to visit the forest as much as I like, it is important for me to know that forests exist in my province.

1

2

3

b. Forests should be managed to meet as many human needs as possible.

1

2

3

c. Forests should have the right to exist for their own sake, regardless of human concerns and uses.

1

2

3

4

5

6

d. Forests give us a sense of peace and well-being.

1

2

3

4

5

6

e. Forests should exist mainly to serve human needs.

1

2

3

4

5

6

f. Forests are sacred places.

1

2

3

4

5

6

g. It is important to maintain the forests for future generations.

1

2

3

4

5

6

h. Forests should be left to grow, develop, and succumb to natural forces without being managed by humans.

1

2

3

4

5

6

i. Forests that are not used for the benefit of humans are a waste of our natural resources.

1

2

3

4

5

6

j. Humans should have more respect and admiration for the forests.

1

2

3

4

5

6

k. Forests let us feel close to nature.

1

2

3

4

5

6

l. If forests are not threatened by human actions, we should use them to add to the quality of human life.

1

2

3

4

5

6

m. Forests rejuvenate the human spirit.

1

2

3

4

5

6

n. Forests can be improved through management by humans.

1

2

3

4

5

6

o. Wildlife, plants, and humans should have equal rights to live and develop.

1

2

3

4

5

6

p. The primary function of forests should be for products and services that are useful to humans.

1

2

3

4

5

6

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4

37

SECTION 2: PROCESS AND DELIBERATION 7.

Is the purpose of this committee clear to you? Please check (✓) ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ below. Yes _____

If Yes, please state the committee’s purpose in the space below.

No _____

If No, please state why the committee’s purpose is unclear.

_______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 8.

Do you feel pressure to agree with committee decisions that you are not completely comfortable with due to: Please circle the number that best indicates how frequently these statements apply to your situation. Never

Seldom

Sometimes

Often

Always

Not Applicable

a. Time constraints

1

2

3

4

5

6

b. A lack of information

1

2

3

4

5

6

c. Group pressure

1

2

3

4

5

6

d. Outside pressure

1

2

3

4

5

6

e. The complexity of the issue

1

2

3

4

5

6

f. Some other constraint (Please specify)

1

2

3

4

5

6

_________________________________ 9.

In your view, who has been most influential in setting the agenda for the meetings? Please check (✓) one box below. ■ Provincial government officials ■ Industry officials ■ The facilitator ■ The participants themselves ■ Other (Please specify) _________________________________________________________________

10. Who sponsors this committee (e.g., is formally responsible for convening the committee)? Please record your answer below. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ Please circle the numbers below that best reflect your situation. Very Somewhat Somewhat Very Negative Negative Neutral Positive Positive

No Opinion

11. Before you were on the committee… a. What were your feelings about this committee?

1

2

3

4

5

6

b. What were your feelings about the sponsor?

1

2

3

4

5

6

Very Somewhat Somewhat Very Negative Negative Neutral Positive Positive

No Opinion

12. Now that you are on the committee… a. What are your feelings about this committee?

1

2

3

4

5

6

b. What are your feelings about the sponsor?

1

2

3

4

5

6

38

NOR-X-409

13. In your opinion, how frequently does the committee access information about forests and forest management from the following sources? Please circle the number that best reflects your opinion. Never

Seldom Sometimes

Often

Always

a. Media (i.e., newspapers, television, radio)

1

2

3

4

5

b. Friends or relatives

1

2

3

4

5

c. Forest industry

1

2

3

4

5

d. Government agencies

1

2

3

4

5

e. First-hand visits to the forest

1

2

3

4

5

f. Environmental/conservation organizations

1

2

3

4

5

g. Research scientists (i.e., biologists, ecologists)

1

2

3

4

5

h. Other (Please specify) _________________________

1

2

3

4

5

14. From all the items listed above, which single source do you consider most accurate? ______ (Indicate by letter) 15. From all the items listed above, which single source do you consider least accurate? ______ (Indicate by letter) 16. Despite the committee sources mentioned above, your own primary source of forest and forest management information is: (Please specify) __________________________________________________________________________ 17. Please indicate your level of agreement with the statements below, regarding the process you are currently involved with and the outcomes achieved from this process. Please circle the number that best reflects your opinion. Strongly Disagree

Neither Agree Nor Disagree Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

No Opinion

a. The process is fair.

1

2

3

4

5

6

b. Money is well spent in the process.

1

2

3

4

5

6

c. Time is poorly spent in the process.

1

2

3

4

5

6

d. My effort is well spent in the process.

1

2

3

4

5

6

e. The process is effective.

1

2

3

4

5

6

f. Decisions succeed in accommodating a full spectrum of public interests.

1

2

3

4

5

6

g. The decisions are easy to implement.

1

2

3

4

5

6

h. I am able to influence the decisions that are made by the committee.

1

2

3

4

5

6

i. I have been given adequate opportunity to voice my concerns within the committee.

1

2

3

4

5

6

j. My ideas are taken seriously by other committee members.

1

2

3

4

5

6

k. I am disappointed with past outcomes from this forest management process.

1

2

3

4

5

6

NOR-X-409

39

Continued from previous page… Please indicate your level of agreement with the statements below, regarding the process you are currently involved with and the outcomes achieved from this process. Please circle the number that best reflects your opinion. Neither Strongly Agree Nor Disagree Disagree Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

No Opinion

l. I believe that forest management decisionmakers consider all viewpoints.

1

2

3

4

5

6

m. I trust forest managers to make the right choices about forest management.

1

2

3

4

5

6

n. I trust the information presented to me about impacts of forest management plans.

1

2

3

4

5

6

o. The staff of the group that sponsors the committee provides me with answers when I ask questions related to forest management.

1

2

3

4

5

6

p. This committee is effective at influencing local forest decision-making. (See below)

1

2

3

4

5

6

18. Depending on how you responded to the last statement above, please use the space below to explain why you feel this committee is effective at influencing decision-making, or why you think it has not been effective. Please record your answer below. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 19. Do you agree with the following statements regarding your participation on the committee? Please indicate ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ by placing a check mark (✓) in the appropriate column. Yes

No

Learning Statements a. I have learned to value other perspectives on forests and forest management. b. I have learned technical aspects of forest management. c. I have come to understand the necessity of incorporating many different perspectives into forest management processes. d. The information I have learned does not significantly aid me in making forest management decisions. e. I have learned to work productively with people who think differently than I do. f. I have learned that these processes work poorly when there are many different perspectives represented. g. Other (Please specify) _______________________________________________________

40

NOR-X-409

20. During an average meeting, what percentage of the committee’s time is spent: (Please ensure your answers total 100%). a. Receiving information from the sponsor of the committee

______ %

b. Receiving information from sources other than the sponsor

______ %

c. Discussing and debating information

______ %

d. Other activities

______ %

(Please specify) ___________________________________ 21. Regarding the quality of group deliberation, please indicate your reaction to the following statements. Please circle the number that best reflects your opinion. Strongly Disagree Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly Agree

Don’t Know

a. Committee meetings are interactive and personal.

1

2

3

4

5

6

b. The committee deals with issues in the early stages of a project.

1

2

3

4

5

6

c. The committee deals with issues throughout the whole life of a project.

1

2

3

4

5

6

d. Controversial issues receive genuine attention and a sufficient response by the committee sponsor(s).

1

2

3

4

5

6

e. Decision-makers regularly attend and participate in the committee’s activities.

1

2

3

4

5

6

f. Participants are shown consideration for their efforts.

1

2

3

4

5

6

g. When new information arises or a surprise occurs, it is usually incorporated into subsequent decisions.

1

2

3

4

5

6

h. The addition of new members slows progress while they learn the fundamentals of forest management and planning.

1

2

3

4

5

6

i. Attendance of regular members is sporadic which means we spend a lot of time recovering old ground.

1

2

3

4

5

6

j. Active discussion is encouraged in the committee. (See below)

1

2

3

4

5

6

22. Depending on how you responded to the last statement above, briefly explain how active discussion is encouraged (or not encouraged) in the committee. Please record your answer below. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 23. Do you think anything could be done to improve the effectiveness of the committee you are involved with? Please check (✓) ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ below. No _______

(Skip to Question #24)

Yes _______

If Yes, please state below what you believe could be done to improve the effectiveness of the committee.

_______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________

NOR-X-409

41

24. How satisfied are you with: Please circle the number that best reflects your opinion. Not Completely Somewhat Satisfied or Somewhat Completely Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Satisfied Satisfied a. The representativeness of the committee.

1

2

3

4

5

b. The quality of discussion within the committee.

1

2

3

4

5

c. The quality of information provided for committee discussion.

1

2

3

4

5

d. The diversity of information available to the committee.

1

2

3

4

5

e. The decision-making process in the committee.

1

2

3

4

5

f. The contributions of other committee members.

1

2

3

4

5

g. The efforts of the committee’s sponsor.

1

2

3

4

5

h. The overall process in which you are involved.

1

2

3

4

5

i. Other (Please specify) ____________________

1

2

3

4

5

SECTION 3: ABOUT YOU These last few questions are about you. 25. You are:

■ Male

■ Female

26. What was your age on your last birthday? _____ Years 27. Do you consider yourself to be an Aboriginal person? ■ Yes ■ No (Status Indian, Non-status Indian, Inuit, Metis) 28. Do you belong to the following organizations? Please indicate ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ by placing a check mark (✓) in the appropriate box. Yes

No

a. A natural history or bird-watching club

■

■

b. A hunting or fishing organization

■

■

c. An environmental organization

■

■

d. A community or social service organization

■

■

29. Does anyone in your household depend upon the fishing, forest, mining, or oil and gas industry or a natural resource agency with either the provincial or federal government, for their economic livelihood? ■ Yes

■ No

30. What is the highest level of education that you have completed? Please check (✓) one box below. ■ Grade 9 or less

■ Some University

■ Some High School

■ University Degree (Bachelors)

■ High School Graduate

■ Some Graduate Study

■ Technical School or

■ Graduate University Degree

Community College

Thank you for your participation! To return this questionnaire, simply put it in the postage-paid envelope provided and drop it in the nearest mailbox, or give it to your committee chairperson.

42

NOR-X-409

Appendix 3.

Demographic characteristics of respondents to survey of members of forest advisory committees % of respondents, by region

Characteristic

Sexc (n = 1057)

Men Women Self-identified as Aboriginalc (n = 1040) Membership in club or organization (1001 ≤ n ≤ 1014)

Natural history or bird-watching clubc

British Atlantica Quebec Ontario Prairiesb Alberta Columbia Canada 87.5 12.5 6.7

81.3 18.7 2.9

86.3 13.7 4.9

89.7 10.3 20.8

81.3 18.8 7.1

68.4 31.6 5.3

81.3 18.7 7.2

9.8

2.3

10.2

16.7

12.8

14.9

10.6

19.7

20.7

29.5

24.0

25.7

23.6

Hunting or fishing organizationc

39.4

28.8

Community or social service organizationc

50.0

19.8

50.4

59.0

46.4

54.1

44.6

59.3

47.5

51.4

50.0

60.3

62.7

54.1

5.1

6.8

7.3

15.4

8.6

14.7

9.8

22.8 16.2 33.0 10.3

18.4 5.7 42.1 19.0

27.5 10.1 34.4 8.1

16.7 10.3 29.4 15.4

21.1 14.1 31.3 14.1

16.0 21.3 30.7 10.7

Environmental organization

Resource industry or agency dependent householdc (n = 1046) Highest level of educationc (n = 1049) No high school diploma High school graduate

Technical school or community college Some university Bachelor’s degree Graduate degree

24.2

12.5

8.1

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. cCharacteristics for which there was a significant difference in responses among

NOR-X-409

47.1

12.6

34.6

12.8

28.8

10.9

29.7

6.7

34.5

10.1 19.9 12.4 34.4 13.3

groups (p < 0.05; Pearson’s chi-square test).

43

Appendix 4.

Reasons for participating on forest advisory committees

Reason for participation

Concerned about the impact of the forest industry on the environmentc Contribute to planning since the forest is a public resource To learn more about land use and forestry planning To learn more about the issues people have in the areac Concerned about forest industry jobs in the areac To learn more about forest management in the areac To ensure that recreational opportunities are not diminishedc Concerned about other jobs in the areac Concerned about resource-based tourism in the areac To ensure that science perspectives are included in the processc To learn more about other industries in the areac Agency that sponsors the committee asked me to joinc Have business interests that may be affected by the outcome Required to attend as part of my jobc

% of respondents, by region

Quebec

Ontario

Prairiesb

93.2

94.5

82.4

92.0

88.0

90.8

90.2

86.5

87.9

87.7

90.8

78.9

86.8

86.9

72.3

81.9

82.1

86.8

78.2

79.7

81.2

81.8

70.2

84.4

80.3

77.2

78.4

77.8

80.5

75.5

84.1

69.7

69.7

80.0

77.3

72.7

65.5

83.7

84.2

79.8

73.0

75.4

78.2

66.8

83.7

77.9

62.1

70.7

73.2

63.4

68.1

79.3

68.0

54.5

81.1

71.6

60.0

69.3

70.9

71.4

49.6

65.8

66.5

70.0

40.9

68.6

73.7

70.8

70.8

62.9

46.2

39.5

56.2

49.4

47.1

44.0

46.6

35.4

63.4

22.9

34.7

36.6

32.0

39.7

28.0 32.3

34.0 68.9

41.0 16.2

28.4 18.2

33.1 34.4

32.9 18.4

34.0 33.8

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. cSignificant difference among regions (p < 0.05; Pearson’s chi-square test; 1009

44

British Alberta Columbia Canada

Atlantica

≤ n ≤ 1038).

NOR-X-409

Appendix 5.

Representation of views by members of forest advisory committees (913 ≤ n ≤ 949)

Views represented

% of respondents, by region

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

6.6 28.6

0.5 16.3

18.4 35.3

3.1 30.2

5.7 23.8

9.2 34.4

7.1 27.1

0.0 0.0

0.0 0.5

1.9 2.0

0.0 0.0

0.9 0.0

3.1 1.6

1.1 0.9

16.0 4.5

8.8 6.3

9.0 8.0

10.9 7.9

7.5 7.6

10.8 6.3

9.9 6.8

1.9 0.9

16.4 13.3

4.7 2.5

9.4 3.2

11.3 6.7

6.2 4.7

9.5 6.6

3.8 3.6

3.5 2.4

2.8 3.5

9.4 7.9

1.9 3.8

7.7 6.3

4.9 4.4

1.9 1.8

2.0 1.6

1.4 1.5

6.3 6.3

7.5 3.8

4.6 3.1

3.5 2.8

30.2 18.8

19.4 17.4

18.9 14.9

10.9 4.8

17.0 16.2

9.2 7.8

16.7 13.0

12.3 8.9

15.7 14.7

1.4 1.5

12.5 6.3

12.3 6.7

7.7 4.7

10.2 7.6

1.9 4.5

1.5 1.6

0.0 0.5

0.0 3.2

1.9 2.9

0.0 0.0

0.8 1.8

2.8 0.9

7.8 4.6

19.3 12.9

7.8 7.9

8.5 7.6

3.1 7.8

8.8 7.4

13.2 6.3

23.5 19.8

17.9 10.0

21.9 9.5

21.7 9.5

15.4 9.4

19.4 12.5

8.5 19.6

0.5 1.4

4.2 7.5

6.3 11.1

1.9 10.5

21.5 10.9

7.1 8.1

0.9 1.8

0.3 0.0

0.0 0.0

1.6 1.6

1.9 1.0

1.5 3.1

1.0 1.1

The public at large Selected Seeking Chamber of commerce Selected Seeking Recreation group Selected Seeking Municipal government Selected Seeking Environmental group Selected Seeking Aboriginal organization Selected Seeking Forest industry Selected Seeking Provincial or federal government Selected Seeking Community or social service organization Selected Seeking Other resource industry Selected Seeking Other groupc Selected Seeking My own views Selected Seeking Not sure Selected Seeking

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. cIncludes a large proportion of representatives from trapping and tourism industries.

NOR-X-409

British Alberta Columbia Canada

Atlantic

45

Appendix 6.

Statement

Degree of agreement with statements related to existence values Without “no opinion” responses

Mean ratinga

Agree (%)

Neither (%)

Disagree (%)

No opinion (%)

It is important to maintain the forests for future generations Atlanticb 4.9 97.7 1.5 0.8 0.0 Quebec 4.9 97.4 1.0 1.5 0.3 Ontario 4.9 98.8 0.8 0.4 0.0 c Prairies 5.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Alberta 4.9 96.8 0.8 2.4 0.8 British Columbia 4.9 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Canada 4.9 98.5 0.6 0.9 0.2 Whether or not I get to visit the forest as much as I like, it is important for me to know that forests exist in my provinced Atlanticb 4.9 97.7 1.5 0.8 0.0 Quebec 4.7 93.0 4.3 2.7 3.4 Ontario 4.8 96.7 2.1 1.3 1.6 Prairiesc 5.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Alberta 4.9 97.6 0.8 1.6 0.8 British Columbia 4.9 97.4 1.3 1.3 1.3 Canada 4.9 96.4 2.1 1.5 1.6 aBased

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. cPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. dSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 1026 ≤ n ≤ 1047).

46

NOR-X-409

Appendix 7. Statement

Degree of agreement with statements related to spiritual values Mean ratinga

Without “no opinion” responses Agree (%)

Humans should have more respect and admiration for the forests Atlanticb 4.6 89.6 Quebec 4.3 86.2 Ontario 4.4 83.3 Prairiesc 4.6 89.7 Alberta 4.4 88.6 British Columbia 4.3 82.4 Canada 4.4 85.8 d Forests let us feel close to nature Atlanticb 4.7 95.5 Quebec 4.6 95.3 Ontario 4.4 87.4 Prairiesc 4.6 94.7 Alberta 4.5 96.0 British Columbia 4.4 88.0 Canada 4.5 92.1 Forests rejuvenate the human spiritd Atlanticb 4.2 81.4 Quebec 4.5 92.4 Ontario 4.1 74.7 c Prairies 4.2 77.6 Alberta 4.3 85.6 British Columbia 4.2 79.1 Canada 4.4 82.7 Forests give us a sense of peace and well-beingd Atlanticb 4.7 92.4 Quebec 4.7 95.1 Ontario 4.4 86.0 Prairiesc 4.6 92.3 Alberta 4.7 96.8 British Columbia 4.4 89.3 Canada 4.6 91.5 d Forests are sacred places Atlanticb 3.3 47.3 Quebec 2.9 32.5 Ontario 3.1 40.9 Prairiesc 3.5 56.4 Alberta 3.3 50.4 British Columbia 3.2 45.7 Canada 3.3 43.4 aBased

Neither (%)

Disagree (%)

No opinion (%)

8.2 9.9 14.2 9.0 11.4 9.5 10.6

2.2 3.9 2.5 1.3 0.0 8.1 3.6

0.0 2.0 1.2 0.0 3.1 3.9 1.9

2.3 3.1 10.0 5.3 2.4 9.3 6.0

2.3 1.6 2.5 0.0 1.6 2.7 1.9

0.0 1.3 1.6 0.0 1.6 2.6 1.4

12.4 6.3 19.1 15.8 14.4 14.9 13.2

6.2 1.3 6.2 6.6 0.0 6.0 4.1

3.7 1.8 7.0 1.3 6.3 10.7 5.3

6.9 3.6 10.2 7.7 2.4 8.0 6.7

0.8 1.3 3.8 0.0 0.8 2.7 1.9

0.8 1.5 2.5 0.0 0.8 2.6 1.6

22.5 29.9 30.2 20.5 24.4 22.9 25.9

30.2 37.6 28.9 23.1 25.2 31.4 30.7

1.5 3.8 4.1 0.0 6.3 7.9 4.2

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. cPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. dSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 997 ≤ n ≤ 1032).

NOR-X-409

47

Appendix 8.

Degree of agreement with statements related to inherent worth values Without “no opinion” responses

Mean Agree Neither Disagree No opinion a (%) rating (%) (%) (%) b Forests should have the right to exist for their own sake, regardless of human concerns and uses Atlanticc 3.6 60.9 10.9 28.1 0.8 Quebec 3.2 47.6 15.7 36.6 1.3 Ontario 3.4 57.1 10.4 32.5 2.9 d Prairies 4.0 76.9 9.0 14.1 0.0 Alberta 4.0 74.0 9.8 16.3 2.4 British Columbia 3.8 70.1 9.1 20.8 0.0 Canada 3.6 62.3 11.3 26.3 1.2 Wildlife, plants, and humans should have equal rights to live and developb Atlanticc 4.2 79.7 8.3 12.0 0.7 Quebec 3.6 62.5 15.0 22.6 2.3 Ontario 3.7 65.7 10.6 23.7 2.1 Prairiesd 4.0 70.5 10.3 19.2 0.0 Alberta 3.7 67.2 8.2 24.6 3.2 British Columbia 3.4 60.0 5.3 34.7 1.3 Canada 3.7 65.5 10.2 24.3 1.8 Forests should be left to grow, develop, and succumb to natural forces without being managed by humansb Atlanticc 1.9 12.9 7.6 79.5 0.8 Quebec 2.1 16.0 12.4 71.6 0.5 Ontario 2.0 18.7 6.2 75.1 0.0 Prairiesd 2.5 34.6 6.4 59.0 0.0 Alberta 2.1 21.8 2.4 75.8 2.4 British Columbia 2.4 31.2 3.9 64.9 0.0 Canada 2.2 22.9 6.9 70.2 0.4 Statement

aBased

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 1019 ≤ n ≤ 1039). cAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. dPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

48

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Appendix 9.

Degree of agreement with statements related to economic or utilitarian values Without “no opinion” responses

Mean Agree Neither ratinga (%) (%) b Forests should be managed to meet as many human needs as possible Atlanticc 4.5 90.2 3.0 Quebec 4.5 88.7 4.1 Ontario 4.2 83.1 3.7 Prairiesd 3.9 76.9 3.8 Alberta 4.0 76.8 4.8 British Columbia 3.8 70.7 5.3 Canada 4.1 80.8 4.2 Statement

Forests can be improved through management by humansb Atlanticc 4.4 87.1 Quebec 4.4 88.4 Ontario 4.2 85.1 d Prairies 3.7 74.4 Alberta 3.7 68.3 British Columbia 3.6 67.5 Canada 4.0 78.9

7.6 5.2 5.4 3.8 11.4 10.4 6.9

Disagree (%)

No opinion (%)

6.8 7.2 13.2 19.2 18.4 24.0 14.9

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.6 0.0 0.2

5.3 6.5 9.5 21.8 20.3 22.1 14.2

0.0 0.0 1.2 0.0 1.6 0.0 0.4

If forests are not threatened by human actions, we should use them to add to the quality of human lifeb Atlanticc 4.5 92.2 5.5 2.3 3.0 Quebec 4.4 87.7 7.9 4.5 1.8 Ontario 4.2 83.5 10.0 6.5 4.1 Prairiesd 4.4 89.2 6.8 4.1 2.6 Alberta 4.1 83.3 7.5 9.2 4.8 British Columbia 4.3 87.3 7.0 5.6 7.8 Canada 4.4 86.9 7.8 5.3 4.1 The primary function of forests should be for products and services that are useful to humansb Atlanticc 2.6 37.1 9.8 53.0 Quebec 3.0 43.2 17.0 39.8 Ontario 2.9 45.4 12.2 42.4 Prairiesd 2.2 23.1 5.1 71.8 Alberta 2.4 27.0 12.3 60.7 British Columbia 2.1 19.7 7.9 72.4 Canada 2.6 33.5 11.3 55.2

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0.8 0.3 1.7 0.0 3.2 1.3 1.2

49

Appendix 9.

Concluded

Without “no opinion” responsesd

Mean Agree Neither Disagree ratinga (%) (%) (%) Forests should exist mainly to serve human needsb Atlanticc 2.5 30.0 13.8 56.2 Quebec 3.0 42.9 15.6 41.6 Ontario 2.6 35.4 12.2 52.3 d Prairies 2.2 24.4 3.8 71.8 Alberta 2.4 22.8 22.0 55.3 British Columbia 2.2 18.4 13.2 68.4 Canada 2.6 30.5 13.1 56.4 Forests that are not used for the benefit of humans are a waste of our natural resourcesb Atlanticc 2.4 28.6 6.8 64.7 Quebec 2.7 35.3 12.9 51.8 Ontario 2.3 26.6 8.3 65.1 Prairiesd 2.1 26.0 2.6 71.4 Alberta 1.9 18.7 2.4 78.9 British Columbia 1.7 11.7 3.9 84.4 Canada 2.2 24.9 7.1 68.0 Statement

aBased

No opinion (%) 1.5 0.3 1.3 0.0 2.4 1.3 1.0 0.7 0.8 0.8 1.3 1.6 0.0 0.9

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 1019 ≤ n ≤ 1039). cAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. dPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

50

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Appendix 10. Frequency of pressure to agree with decisions with which respondents were not completely comfortable

Source of pressure

The complexity of the issuea Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada A lack of informationa Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada Time constraintsa Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada Group pressurea Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada Outside pressurea Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada

Less often (%)

% of respondents, by frequency

Sometimes More often Not applicable (%) (%) (%)

61.4 58.7 47.4 37.4 52.9 42.1 49.4

24.4 29.8 33.2 38.7 30.9 36.8 33.0

11.0 11.5 16.0 17.3 9.7 15.7 13.9

3.1 0.0 3.4 6.7 6.5 5.3 3.6

69.8 67.1 58.3 42.7 63.7 50.7 58.2

19.0 25.1 30.6 30.7 25.8 32.0 28.1

7.1 7.9 7.0 20.0 4.0 10.6 9.6

4.0 0.0 4.1 6.7 6.5 6.7 4.2

73.8 72.3 65.1 50.0 60.2 53.3 62.4

20.6 18.8 22.5 31.6 25.2 27.3 24.0

1.6 8.9 7.9 11.8 6.5 10.4 8.5

4.0 0.0 4.6 6.6 8.1 9.1 5.0

84.9 82.1 79.0 68.5 76.6 71.1 76.8

6.3 14.0 10.9 16.4 11.3 15.8 13.2

4.8 3.9 6.7 8.2 5.6 6.5 5.8

4.0 0.0 3.4 6.8 6.5 6.6 4.1

84.1 88.0 77.2 74.3 79.8 78.7 80.7

9.5 8.6 14.1 13.5 8.9 9.3 10.6

2.4 3.4 5.8 5.5 4.8 1.3 3.9

4.0 0.0 2.9 6.8 6.5 10.7 4.9

aSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis bAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. cPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

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of variance; 1021 ≤ n ≤ 1035).

51

Appendix 11. Frequency of committee accessing various sources of information % of respondents, by frequency

Source of information

Media (e.g., newspapers, television, radio)a Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada Friends or relativesa Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada Forest industrya Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada Government agenciesa Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada First-hand visits to the foresta Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada

52

Less often (%)

Sometimes (%)

More often (%)

41.2 57.8 42.6 47.9 40.5 49.3 48.5

42.0 28.1 38.4 42.3 43.7 34.2 36.1

16.8 14.1 19.0 9.9 15.9 16.4 15.4

45.7 77.0 47.5 54.3 59.2 55.7 59.3

41.1 17.5 39.4 28.6 32.5 34.3 30.3

13.2 5.5 13.1 17.1 8.3 10.0 10.4

2.3 3.8 1.2 8.2 0.0 1.4 2.9

12.9 12.5 10.2 17.8 9.6 6.8 11.3

84.8 83.7 88.6 74.0 90.4 91.9 85.7

10.6 4.1 0.8 5.5 4.0 6.8 4.6

24.2 9.7 9.0 28.8 26.2 28.4 19.1

65.1 86.2 90.2 65.8 69.8 64.9 76.3

9.0 45.7 28.3 27.1 14.4 31.1 30.5

45.1 35.4 43.9 45.7 56.0 37.8 41.9

45.9 18.9 27.9 27.1 29.6 31.1 27.6

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Appendix 11. Concluded % of respondents, by frequency

Source of information Environmental or conservation organizations Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada Research scientists (e.g., biologists, ecologists)a Atlanticb Quebec Ontario Prairiesc Alberta British Columbia Canada

Less often (%)

Sometimes (%)

17.3 22.1 26.8 27.8 26.6 28.4 25.2

45.1 39.0 44.7 40.3 40.3 44.6 42.1

37.6 39.0 28.5 31.9 33.1 27.0 32.7

19.1 16.3 19.9 19.4 8.1 8.2 15.2

38.2 34.2 43.5 41.7 23.4 34.2 36.4

42.7 49.5 36.6 38.9 68.5 57.5 48.5

aSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis bAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. cPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

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More often (%)

of variance; 1008 ≤ n ≤ 1042).

53

Appendix 12. Time spent on various activities during committee meetings Activitya

Meanb

% of respondents, by % of time spent

Receiving information from the sponsor of the committee Atlanticc 38.0ab Quebec 32.0c Ontario 32.4bc Prairiesd 40.9a Alberta 33.3abc British Columbia 37.1abc Canada 35.1 Receiving information from sources other than the sponsor Atlanticc 22.8abc Quebec 25.2ab Ontario 26.0ab d Prairies 19.9c Alberta 27.1b British Columbia 20.8ac Canada 23.7 Discussing and debating information Atlanticc 34.9a Quebec 40.6b Ontario 36.1a d Prairies 34.6ab Alberta 34.9a British Columbia 38.3ab Canada 37.4 aNational

0%–19%

20%–49%

>50%

9.4 21.6 14.5 13.9 15.8 12.7 15.7

57.8 54.9 65.0 43.1 63.3 56.3 56.3

32.8 23.5 20.5 43.1 20.8 31.0 28.0

31.3 28.1 20.5 38.9 20.0 43.7 30.9

60.2 62.6 71.8 56.9 68.3 52.1 61.7

8.6 9.3 7.7 4.2 11.7 4.2 7.4

12.5 10.2 10.3 13.9 8.3 16.9 12.2

57.0 50.3 59.0 59.7 63.3 42.3 53.3

30.5 39.5 30.8 26.4 28.3 40.8 34.5

means for these three activities sum to 96.1%. Most respondents indicated that housekeeping and general administrative issues accounted for the remainder of the time. bAny two means that are not followed by different letters are significantly different (p < 0.5; Tukey’s test). cAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. dPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

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Appendix 13. Agreement with statements regarding participation on committee

% of respondents who partly or strongly agreed, by region

Statement I have learned to value other perspectives on forests and forest managementc I have learned technical aspects of forest managementc

I have come to understand the necessity of incorporating many different perspectives into forest management processes

The information I have learned does not significantly aid me in making forest management decisionsc I have learned to work productively with people who think differently than I doc

I have learned that these processes work poorly when there are many different perspectives representedc

Quebec

Ontario

Prairiesb

94.6

93.5

98.0

93.4

96.7

88.7

93.7

84.5

81.3

93.1

84.4

91.8

84.9

86.0

96.9

92.7

94.7

93.4

93.4

86.1

92.2

23.6

17.3

14.5

16.2

16.0

30.6

19.6

86.5

78.6

92.9

90.5

90.7

84.5

86.3

23.2

31.5

22.2

16.4

17.9

19.4

22.9

aAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. bPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. cSignificant difference in percentage of “yes” responses among groups (p < 0.05; Pearson’s

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British Alberta Columbia Canada

Atlantica

chi-square test; 1011 ≤ n ≤ 1036).

55

Appendix 14. Feelings about committee and sponsor

Without “no opinion” responses

Type of feeling

Before joining committee Feelings about this committeeb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada Feelings about the sponsorb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada After joining the committee Feelings about this committeeb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada Feelings about the sponsorb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada aBased

Meana rating

Negative (%)

Neutral (%)

Positive (%)

No opinion (%)

3.5 3.5 3.3 3.4 3.4 3.4 3.4

10.6 18.6 12.8 24.2 9.1 18.0 17.0

42.3 31.6 47.3 33.3 51.1 34.0 38.1

47.1 49.8 39.9 42.4 39.8 48.0 44.9

19.4 18.2 23.0 14.3 29.6 33.3 22.9

3.5 3.7 3.3 3.3 3.5 3.2 3.4

20.8 15.5 19.5 33.8 17.9 31.8 23.3

28.3 27.0 36.3 14.9 30.8 27.3 27.3

50.8 57.5 44.2 51.4 51.3 40.9 49.4

6.3 12.1 11.5 5.1 6.4 12.0 9.8

4.2 4.1 4.1 3.8 4.1 3.7 4.0

10.0 10.3 9.4 14.3 12.8 19.7 13.0

10.0 8.7 5.7 10.4 10.4 13.2 9.6

80.0 81.0 84.9 75.3 76.8 67.1 77.5

1.5 3.8 1.2 0.0 0.8 1.3 1.7

4.0 4.1 3.7 3.6 3.9 3.4 3.8

16.7 10.8 14.2 21.3 13.1 26.7 17.1

6.3 14.1 18.8 13.3 18.0 18.7 15.8

77.0 75.1 67.1 65.3 68.9 54.7 67.1

3.8 5.4 2.4 1.3 1.6 2.6 3.1

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = very negative and 5 = very positive. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 819 ≤ n ≤ 1032). cAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. dPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

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Appendix 15. Agreement with statements related to the forest management planning process Statement General The process is fairb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada Money is well spent in the processb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada Time is poorly spent in the processb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada The process is effectiveb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada Personal My effort is well spent in the processb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada

NOR-X-409

Without “no opinion” responses Mean Agree Neither Disagree ratinga (%) (%) (%)

No opinion (%)

3.9 4.0 3.7 3.6 3.9 3.5 3.7

78.9 75.5 73.0 69.3 76.8 63.5 72.0

12.5 11.2 13.1 13.3 15.2 12.2 12.6

8.6 13.3 13.9 17.3 8.0 24.3 15.4

3.0 2.0 3.3 2.6 0.8 3.9 2.8

3.8 3.9 3.7 3.5 3.8 3.3 3.7

72.4 70.5 68.8 65.3 69.7 47.1 64.2

18.7 16.9 21.1 14.7 20.2 32.9 21.4

8.9 12.6 10.1 20.0 10.1 20.0 14.4

6.1 17.7 3.7 3.8 5.6 6.7 8.4

2.3 2.6 2.5 2.6 2.3 2.7 2.5

10.9 29.7 18.5 25.0 18.5 23.3 22.7

22.7 17.1 21.9 15.8 11.3 17.8 18.1

66.4 53.2 59.7 59.2 70.2 58.9 59.2

2.3 2.5 4.1 2.6 1.6 3.9 3.1

3.6 3.7 3.6 3.2 3.6 3.3 3.5

60.9 69.3 66.3 47.3 68.8 50.7 60.9

24.2 12.1 20.4 29.7 14.4 26.0 20.4

14.8 18.6 13.3 23.0 16.8 23.3 18.7

1.5 3.0 1.2 5.1 0.8 5.2 3.1

3.8 3.8 3.7 3.6 3.6 3.3 3.7

68.8 70.0 72.1 66.7 70.2 55.4 66.7

19.5 19.7 18.8 21.3 12.9 18.9 19.0

11.7 10.3 9.2 12.0 16.9 25.7 14.3

3.8 3.0 1.6 3.8 1.6 3.9 3.1

57

Appendix 15. Continued

Without “no opinion” responses Mean Agree Neither Disagree ratinga (%) (%) (%)

Statement Personal I am able to influence the decisions that are made by the committeeb Atlanticc 3.5 52.8 34.4 Quebec 3.7 70.1 17.2 Ontario 3.4 53.2 34.5 Prairiesd 3.5 61.6 23.3 Alberta 3.5 61.5 28.2 British Columbia 3.3 47.9 36.6 Canada 3.5 58.7 28.1 I have been given adequate opportunity to voice my concerns within the committeeb Atlanticc 4.2 88.4 5.4 Quebec 4.4 88.7 5.9 Ontario 4.3 92.2 5.3 d Prairies 4.0 85.5 6.6 Alberta 4.2 88.3 9.2 British Columbia 4.3 86.1 9.7 Canada 4.2 88.5 7.0 My ideas are taken seriously by other committee membersb Atlanticc 4.0 85.8 10.2 Quebec 4.2 85.0 11.4 Ontario 3.9 79.0 16.0 Prairiesd 3.8 78.4 13.5 Alberta 4.0 84.2 10.0 British Columbia 4.0 81.4 14.3 Canada 4.0 82.1 13.0 Decision-making and learning I am disappointed with past outcomes from this forest management processb Atlanticc 2.6 23.0 Quebec 2.5 25.8 Ontario 2.8 26.2 Prairiesd 2.9 29.0 Alberta 2.4 16.1 British Columbia 3.0 37.9 Canada 2.7 27.5 I believe that forest management decision-makers consider all viewpointsb Atlanticc 3.2 49.2 Quebec 3.3 57.8 Ontario 3.5 62.4 Prairiesd 3.1 45.5 Alberta 3.4 60.0 British Columbia 2.8 34.7 Canada 3.2 51.7

58

No opinion (%)

12.8 12.8 12.3 15.1 10.3 15.5 13.2

5.3 3.8 3.3 6.4 7.1 7.8 5.5

6.2 5.4 2.5 7.9 2.5 4.2 4.5

3.0 2.8 1.2 2.6 4.8 6.5 3.5

3.9 3.6 5.0 8.1 5.8 4.3 4.9

4.5 3.3 2.9 5.1 4.8 9.1 4.9

23.8 20.1 26.6 29.0 20.3 19.7 23.0

53.3 54.2 47.2 42.0 63.6 42.4 49.5

8.3 12.8 6.1 11.5 5.6 10.8 9.8

20.0 7.1 13.9 16.9 13.6 20.0 14.3

30.8 35.1 23.7 37.7 26.4 45.3 34.0

0.8 1.5 0.4 1.3 0.0 0.0 0.9

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Appendix 15. Continued

Without “no opinion” responses Mean Agree Neither Disagree ratinga (%) (%) (%)

No opinion (%)

Statement Decision-making and learning I trust forest managers to make the right choices about forest managementb Atlanticc 3.2 46.2 21.5 32.3 0.8 Quebec 3.3 54.1 12.9 33.0 2.3 Ontario 3.2 48.6 20.0 31.4 0.4 Prairiesd 2.8 35.5 17.1 47.4 2.6 Alberta 3.2 45.9 23.8 30.3 2.4 British Columbia 2.6 28.0 20.0 52.0 0.0 Canada 3.0 43.3 18.2 38.4 1.5 I trust the information presented to me about impacts of forest management plansb Atlanticc 3.5 61.8 17.6 20.6 0.0 Quebec 3.6 65.3 13.1 21.6 2.5 Ontario 3.5 59.2 23.3 17.6 0.4 d Prairies 3.3 52.6 21.1 26.3 2.6 Alberta 3.6 61.8 26.0 12.2 0.8 British Columbia 3.2 49.3 24.0 26.7 0.0 Canada 3.4 58.4 20.2 21.5 1.3 The staff of the group that sponsors the committee provides me with answers when I ask questions related to forest managementb Atlanticc 4.1 87.4 7.9 4.7 0.8 Quebec 4.2 84.1 8.4 7.6 6.6 Ontario 4.1 84.4 11.5 4.1 1.2 Prairiesd 3.9 80.0 12.0 8.0 2.6 Alberta 4.2 88.0 7.7 4.3 4.9 British Columbia 4.0 82.4 8.1 9.5 1.3 Canada 4.1 83.7 9.5 6.8 3.3 Decisions succeed in accommodating a full spectrum of public interests Atlanticc 3.6 64.3 22.5 13.2 1.5 Quebec 3.7 68.0 12.8 19.3 4.2 Ontario 3.5 63.2 16.9 19.8 1.6 d Prairies 3.3 46.5 33.8 19.7 6.6 Alberta 3.5 58.2 23.0 18.9 2.4 British Columbia 3.2 44.4 26.4 29.2 6.6 Canada 3.5 57.7 21.2 21.1 4.2 The decisions are easy to implement Atlanticc 2.9 26.0 30.7 43.3 3.1 Quebec 3.1 41.8 22.3 35.9 6.5 Ontario 2.7 34.3 19.5 46.2 2.9 d Prairies 2.5 31.3 14.9 53.7 11.8 Alberta 2.9 34.4 29.5 36.1 2.4 British Columbia 2.6 35.7 17.1 47.1 9.1 Canada 2.8 26.3 30.4 43.3 6.3

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59

Appendix 15. Concluded

Without “no opinion” responses Mean Agree Neither Disagree ratinga (%) (%) (%)

Statement Decision-making and learning This committee is effective at influencing local forest decision-makingb Atlanticc 3.4 51.2 Quebec 3.7 67.8 Ontario 3.6 61.6 Prairiesd 3.2 50.0 Alberta 3.5 62.1 British Columbia 3.1 43.8 Canada 3.5 57.2 aBased

29.9 15.5 25.6 25.7 21.8 28.8 23.4

18.9 16.6 12.8 24.3 16.1 27.4 19.4

No opinion (%)

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 1033 ≤ n ≤ 1050). cAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. dPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

60

2.3 6.5 0.8 6.7 0.8 2.7 3.7

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Appendix 16. Agreement with statements regarding the quality of group deliberation Without “don’t know” responses

Statement

Mean ratinga

Agree (%)

Neutral (%)

Disagree Don’t know (%) (%)

Committee meetings are interactive and personalb Atlanticc 3.9 76.4 17.3 6.3 Quebec 4.4 90.6 7.1 2.3 Ontario 3.9 77.4 15.6 7.0 Prairiesd 3.8 74.7 14.7 10.7 Alberta 3.9 78.9 13.0 8.1 British Columbia 3.9 73.6 16.7 9.7 Canada 4.0 79.9 13.2 6.9 The committee deals with issues in the early stages of a projectb Atlanticc 3.5 58.1 29.8 12.1 Quebec 3.9 73.2 15.5 11.3 Ontario 3.8 74.0 17.8 8.3 d Prairies 3.4 52.1 27.4 20.5 Alberta 3.7 68.6 18.6 12.7 British Columbia 3.3 50.7 30.4 18.8 Canada 3.6 63.9 22.3 13.8 The committee deals with issues throughout the whole life of a projectb Atlanticc 3.5 60.6 25.2 14.2 Quebec 4.0 75.1 16.9 8.0 Ontario 3.8 79.5 12.6 7.9 d Prairies 3.7 67.6 21.1 11.3 Alberta 3.8 80.5 8.5 11.0 British Columbia 3.6 64.1 25.0 10.9 Canada 3.8 72.1 18.1 9.9 Controversial issues receive genuine attention and a sufficient response by the committee sponsor(s)b Atlanticc 3.9 81.3 8.6 10.2 Quebec 4.2 81.5 6.7 11.8 Ontario 3.7 74.9 10.9 14.2 Prairiesd 3.5 64.0 18.7 17.3 Alberta 3.8 77.2 7.3 15.4 British Columbia 3.6 64.8 19.7 15.5 Canada 3.8 73.6 12.3 14.1 b Decision-makers regularly attend and participate in the committee Atlanticc 4.0 81.0 11.1 7.9 Quebec 3.9 72.3 11.7 16.0 Ontario 3.8 77.5 9.8 12.7 Prairiesd 3.4 59.5 14.9 25.7 Alberta 3.7 73.6 10.7 15.7 British Columbia 3.5 61.4 14.3 24.3 Canada 3.7 69.9 12.2 17.9

NOR-X-409

0.8 0.8 0.8 0.0 0.8 1.4 0.9 0.8 5.6 1.6 2.7 4.1 5.5 3.9 0.0 8.6 1.2 2.7 2.5 11.1 5.5 0.8 1.8 0.0 0.0 0.8 4.1 1.5 0.8 1.8 0.8 1.3 2.4 5.4 2.2

61

Appendix 16. Concluded Statement

Without “don’t know” responses

Mean ratinga

Agree (%)

Neutral (%)

Disagree Don’t know (%) (%)

Participants are shown consideration for their effortsb Atlanticc 4.1 86.0 11.6 2.3 0.0 Quebec 4.4 89.5 6.4 4.1 1.5 Ontario 3.9 79.2 15.1 5.7 0.8 Prairiesd 3.7 74.7 12.0 13.3 0.0 Alberta 4.1 93.5 2.4 4.1 0.8 British Columbia 4.1 80.3 15.5 4.2 4.1 Canada 4.1 83.5 10.8 5.7 1.5 When new information arises or a surprise occurs, it is usually incorporated into subsequent decisionsb Atlanticc 4.0 80.0 16.0 4.0 3.1 Quebec 4.3 84.3 12.0 3.7 4.0 Ontario 3.8 76.6 19.2 4.2 2.8 d Prairies 3.6 70.4 18.3 11.3 5.3 Alberta 3.9 81.4 11.9 6.8 4.1 British Columbia 3.7 70.6 17.6 11.8 6.8 Canada 3.9 77.3 15.9 6.8 4.5 The addition of new members slows progress while they learn the fundamentals of forest management and planningb Atlanticc 2.6 21.1 26.0 52.8 4.7 Quebec 3.1 41.1 24.8 34.1 5.5 Ontario 2.9 27.8 31.0 41.2 0.4 Prairiesd 2.9 36.6 23.9 39.4 4.1 Alberta 3.0 33.3 31.7 35.0 4.0 British Columbia 3.1 33.8 35.3 30.9 8.1 Canada 3.0 33.8 29.0 37.3 4.7 b Attendance of regular members is sporadic which means we spend a lot of time re-covering old ground Atlanticc 2.4 14.7 21.7 63.6 0.8 Quebec 2.9 39.3 19.3 41.4 2.0 Ontario 2.5 17.0 20.6 62.3 0.0 Prairiesd 3.0 28.4 31.1 40.5 1.3 Alberta 2.4 13.0 21.1 65.9 0.8 British Columbia 2.5 18.1 19.4 62.5 2.7 Canada 2.7 24.3 21.6 54.1 1.5 Active discussion is encouraged in the committeeb Atlanticc 4.2 89.1 7.0 3.9 0.0 Quebec 4.3 86.5 8.7 4.8 1.0 Ontario 4.1 86.9 9.4 3.7 0.0 d Prairies 3.9 80.8 9.6 9.6 0.0 Alberta 4.2 91.7 4.1 4.1 0.8 British Columbia 4.1 80.8 6.8 12.3 1.4 Canada 4.2 85.1 8.0 6.9 0.8 aBased

on a 5-point scale, where 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 1031 ≤ n ≤ 1047). cAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. dPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan. 62

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Appendix 17. Satisfaction with various aspects of the committee and process Aspect

The efforts of the committee’s sponsorb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada The quality of information provided for committee discussion Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada The representativeness of the committeeb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada The quality of discussion within the committeeb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada The diversity of information available to the committeeb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada

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Mean ratinga

Satisfied (%)

Neither Dissatisfied (%) (%)

4.1a 4.1a 4.0a 3.9a 4.3a 3.9a 4.0

81.1 81.3 82.4 71.6 84.0 75.0 79.0

7.9 12.5 8.6 14.9 9.6 15.3 12.1

11.0 6.1 9.0 13.5 6.4 9.7 8.8

4.1a 4.0a 4.1a 3.9a 4.2a 4.0a 4.0

86.0 82.9 86.2 80.0 85.7 77.8 82.7

7.0 10.7 5.3 6.7 5.6 11.1 8.1

7.0 6.4 8.5 13.3 8.7 11.1 9.2

4.2a 4.1a 3.9ab 3.9ab 4.0ab 3.7b 3.9

88.5 86.0 81.4 77.6 76.4 66.2 82.1

4.6 8.6 5.3 9.2 14.2 15.5 8.5

6.9 5.3 13.4 13.2 9.4 18.3 9.4

4.1ab 4.0ab 4.1b 3.7a 4.0ab 3.8ab 4.0

86.3 84.3 84.7 73.3 84.3 68.5 79.7

3.8 9.6 6.5 10.7 5.5 15.1 9.4

9.9 6.1 8.9 16.0 10.2 16.4 10.9

4.0a 3.9a 3.9a 3.7a 4.1a 3.8a 3.9

76.3 73.7 80.6 72.0 84.3 71.2 75.6

12.2 18.9 8.5 10.7 4.7 13.7 12.5

11.5 7.4 10.9 17.3 11.0 15.1 11.9

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Appendix 17. Concluded Aspect

The contributions of other committee members Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada The overall process in which you are involvedb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada The decision-making process in the committeeb Atlanticc Quebec Ontario Prairiesd Alberta British Columbia Canada aBased

Mean ratinga

Satisfied (%)

Neither Dissatisfied (%) (%)

4.0a 3.8a 3.8a 3.8a 3.9a 3.7a 3.8

77.7 74.7 73.6 71.6 79.5 66.7 72.9

13.8 19.7 15.9 18.9 11.0 20.8 17.8

8.5 5.6 10.6 9.5 9.4 12.5 9.3

3.9a 3.9a 3.9ab 3.6ab 4.0a 3.5b 3.8

76.2 76.8 78.2 65.8 81.0 60.3 72.4

11.5 14.0 10.1 15.8 5.6 15.1 12.7

12.3 9.2 11.7 18.4 13.5 24.7 14.9

3.9ab 3.7bc 3.8abd 3.4c 4.0a 3.5cd 3.7

76.2 69.0 73.2 56.0 80.0 56.9 67.2

12.3 16.5 13.0 18.7 11.2 22.2 16.4

11.5 14.5 13.8 25.3 8.8 20.8 16.5

on a 5-point scale where, 1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree. To facilitate presentation, the scale was collapsed into three categories. bSignificant difference in mean responses among groups (p < 0.05; Fisher’s analysis of variance; 1033 ≤ n ≤ 1050). cAtlantic region comprises New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. dPrairies region comprises Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

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